


Scoundrel

by libraryv



Category: War and Peace (TV 2016)
Genre: Alternate Canon, Character Study, Napoleonic Wars, Origin Story, roguishness
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-27
Updated: 2021-01-09
Packaged: 2021-03-09 22:54:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 21,858
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27744070
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/libraryv/pseuds/libraryv
Summary: Fedya's adventures during the War and Peace years, from his POV.
Comments: 85
Kudos: 12





	1. Petersburg & Parties

**Author's Note:**

> Well, this has been the result of both winter (which always brings about a Dolokhovian mood) and self-isolation (during which I needed a writing project.) It's satisfying a self-indulgent itch, but I hope anyone who stumbles across this enjoys it! 
> 
> I re-watched the show, and have done some pretty intense re-reading of the Dolokhovian bits of the book (you should see my copy! 😆) in order to put together my spin on Fedya's version of events. 
> 
> He's a scoundrel, but I believe he has his reasons, and I loved writing this. 💗 I wanted to keep his spirit intact/in keeping with the books, but it's definitely my interpretation. Hopefully I don't have Tolstoy rolling in his grave.

**St. Petersburg, late Autumn, 1805**

The quiet drumming of hoofbeats turned into a strident clatter as the packed dirt road gave way to cobblestones of the capital. The men of Semenov’s regiment perked up; the ride had been long, and some of them had even entered into a half-watchful sleep, dozing in fits and starts in their saddles. Now, with the first rosy fingers of dawn streaking across the winter sky, they began sitting straighter, murmuring conversation to each other, clearing throats and rotating stiff shoulders. 

The soldiers guided their horses down avenues of tall row houses that soon gave way to wider streets, and as they crested a small hill, the gleaming domes of St. Isaac’s cathedral came into view. The men squinted against the brightness, small clouds puffing from their horses’ noses into the frigid air.

 _St. Petersburg._

Fyodor Ivanovich Dolokhov sat tall in his saddle, a thin sheen of sweat freezing on his temple. His dark hair, worn slightly longer than was fashionable, curled at his cheeks, which were reddened from the stinging wind. Clever, clear green eyes studied the frosted cityscape in front of him. He took a great lungful of brisk air, cleansing the last traces of the previous night’s vodka from his system.

“That’s a grand sight,” sighed Chekoff, who had pulled up beside him. “Do the women compare to the view, do you think?” 

“Doubt you’ll get close to finding out,” joked Timokhin, who had also stopped. 

“What do you reckon, Dolokhov? Do you-”

“I reckon we won’t find out by sitting here looking at it.” Dolokhov whipped a grin at them, eyes glinting, then clicked his tongue and galloped ahead, the other soldiers’ laughter filtering behind him in the icy air. 

*****

_Both Kurágin and Dólokhov were at that time notorious among the rakes and scapegraces of Petersburg._

_-Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace_

As Petersburg’s barracks were reserved for the city’s provincial officers and higher ranking men, the visiting soldiers of Semenov’s regiment were encouraged to find their own lodgings. They would not leave for battle for two weeks; in the meantime, Petersburg was a beckoning playground. There was money to be won, bets to be placed, and women to be seduced. 

Dolokhov, coming from an impoverished existence back in Moscow, still had a standing connection with an old family name. As a child, due to his once-fashionable mother’s time in society, Dolokhov had spent a summer with the long-respected Kuragins. 

Now a grown man, similar in age to Dolokhov, Anatole Kuragin had extended an invitation to stay with him at his town house in the fashionable district, which was conveniently located near the Horse Guard’s barracks. It was here that Dolokhov would spend the next few weeks before departing for the front lines.

Anatole came striding out the front door to greet him, arms spread in welcome, a wide smile stretched across his face. 

Dolokhov dismounted and embraced his old friend gladly. Anatole pulled back to study him, his laughter ringing out into the morning. 

“Fedya, you good-looking devil! As if you need any more fodder for that cocksure confidence of yours; it’s almost criminal.”

“You’re the first one to complain.” 

Anatole chuckled. 

“Come come, out of this blasted cold, I’ll show you your rooms.”

He signalled for the groom to take Dolokhov’s stallion to the stables, then threw his arm around Dolokhov’s shoulders, taking them both inside and smiling again.

“It is good to see you my friend; Petersburg has been deprived of you for too long, and I’m going to correct that.”

Dolokhov groaned good-naturedly. 

“You wouldn’t be so cruel as to throw me into reputable society.”

“I would indeed. You’re coming with me to cards and dancing at the Petrekoffs this evening, and you’re going to prevent me from dying of boredom.”

“And what is there to prevent me suffering the same fate?”

“Women, Dolokhov!” Anatole leaned in closer and gave him a conspiratorial wink. “And I’ll tell you something else; Petersburg’s richest men are also the loosest with their money.”

Dolokhov’s eyes sparkled.

“And the most trusting with their bets?”

Anatole grinned. 

“You see? We’ll make a society man out of you yet.”

********

Lacking much in the way of formal attire, and in possession of only one silk waistcoat, Dolokhov opted for military dress that evening. Soldiers were always looked upon favourably; indeed, he often relied on his officer’s jacket and the esteem it afforded him. 

In truth, Anatole’s connection was most welcome. Dolokhov had no interest in fashionable society with its gossip and obsession with status, but viewed approval within its world as survival, as a step further in the world, as another weapon in his arsenal. 

The Petrekoffs were a well-established, old Petersburg family, known for their winter parties and lavish feasts. Their house was crowded that night; the bodies packed into rooms causing the temperature to rise, ladies fanning themselves and pulling at their gloves, the men tugging at collars and cravats. 

Anatole introduced Dolokhov to Princess after Princess, Count after Count, whispering titles and gossip under his breath to his friend, who bowed and kissed hands and offered everyone his wide, wolfish smile.

The evening wore on; the vodka and punch disappearing down throats, and Dolokhov found it easy to orchestrate a game of cards with a group of people his age, a pretty brunette on one side and a laughing blonde on the other, who was stroking her hand up and down his chest in admiration. 

“Place your bets,” stated Dolokhov, skillfully shuffling the deck. 

“You’re a rascal, Officer Dolokhov; I came to this party with a nice sum of kopeks in my pocket and I’ve lost it all,” laughed the man across from him. 

“I say, are all soldiers this lucky?” joked another young man, leaning back and trying to imitate Dolokhov’s lounging posture.

“Just me, and I make my own luck.” Dolokhov flashed him a smile, then turned suddenly and caught the blonde girl’s hand as it snaked up to his collar. He held it gently, then pulled her to him and kissed her. The group whooped in delight, and Dolokhov pulled back, the girl giggling ecstatically. 

“Will you play, or not?” he said, turning back to the game.

“I tell you, I’ve just about run dry.”

“I should think the son of the Emperor’s military advisor could afford to be more daring,” returned Dolokhov, with calculated disinterest. He had been paying close attention to every detail Anatole had shared with him this evening about who was who; Dolokhov could put his keen memory to use when he cared to. 

The young man across from him huffed, smiling, feeling the weight of the group’s stares on him. It would be bad show to lose face, especially when his status had been called out. 

“All right, yes of course, I’ll play and double my wager. I can afford it, after all.”

The comment was meant to bite, but Dolokhov only nodded in agreement, and began dealing.

“If you triple it, you stand to not only win back what you’ve lost, but gain, as well,” he said, his eyes flashing a challenge.

The young man deliberated. 

“Still, don’t ruin yourself,”* smiled Dolokhov with a careless shrug, and tipped back a shot of vodka before turning to his other side and this time kissing the brunette.

The group erupted into delighted exclamations and laughter again, and when Dolokhov returned his focus to the table, it was to his opponent straightening his collar determinedly. 

“Triple or nothing it shall be, Officer Dolokhov.”

*****

As the time edged closer to midnight, Dolokhov drank, cajoled, gambled, and seduced a young lady on a conveniently hidden settee. She had eagerly dragged him on top of her; the whole thing from start to finish had been a heated, quick scramble. Afterward, she had stroked his hair and whispered into his ear that it was exciting to share an encounter with a “penniless soldier, such a different escape.”

Her comment had stung, but the night had been a success: he had quickly found that these grand people fell easily to charm and flattery. They cared less about losing money because they had more to spare, less about their reputation because their good name protected them.

He knew he was a novelty to them; a toy soldier to play with whose antics amused them.  
They found him new, and entertaining, and he was going to push that belief as far as it would go.

Dolokhov felt his luck changing at long last. There was only forward.


	2. Bezukhov & The Bear

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In his last few days before battle, Dolokhov continues on his current track of partying, and meets Pierre.

_“Prince Vasíli’s son, he, and a certain Dólokhov have, it is said, been up to heaven only knows what! And they have had to suffer for it. Dólokhov has been degraded to the ranks and Bezúkhov’s son sent back to Moscow. Anatole Kurágin’s father managed somehow to get his son’s affair hushed up, but even he was ordered out of Petersburg.”_

_“But what have they been up to?” asked the countess._

_“They are regular brigands, especially Dólokhov,” replied the visitor. [...] The police tried to interfere, and what did the young men do? They tied a policeman and the bear back to back and put the bear into the Moyka Canal. And there was the bear swimming about with the policeman on his back!”_

_-Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace_

The next ten days were a whirl of social obligation and parties; and quicker than wildfire, Dolokhov and Anatole’s disrepute grew to epic proportions. They no longer attended sedate dinners; Anatole simply held evenings of cards and drinks at his own house, and the set of people that frequented them became rougher and rougher. Sons and daughters of the best families were warned to stay away; Dolokhov’s notoriety as a cardsharp, Anatole’s temper, and their combined reputation with women became a byword for caution. 

Anatole didn’t care; his father’s good name provided a shield, and it was exactly a week before Dolokhov was to report for active duty, the only vent for his nerves being to throw himself entirely into distraction.

Time was speeding along. News of Napoleon and his advancing French army was everywhere, and Dolokhov felt as if he was being swept along by a force that was larger than him, than any of them. 

The unshakeable, unspoken truth that not all of Semenov’s regiment would return was heavy in the air, and it lent everything a sharper edge. But for Dolokhov, it was reassuring: to go back was to return to a life of insignificance, to be trapped in poverty in Moscow. To go forward was to be alive, and to make something of himself. That was worth the risk of his own life, because what _was_ his life, otherwise?

*****

“HA!” Dolokhov’s hand slammed the card down onto the table a fraction faster than Anatole’s, and the parlour erupted into cheers and laughter. 

“No, no no!” Anatole was laughing so hard he could barely shout his disagreement, waving his arms in the air and convulsing into merry tears. 

“Drink!” roared Dolokhov victoriously, and Anatole was gasping with mirth, shaking his head.

“You drink, Fedya, you’ve forgotten to play your last card!” he finally managed.

Dolokhov looked at the hand he had slammed down and caught his mistake. 

“Damn!” he laughed, and, shrugging, picked up his glass, throwing it down his throat in one go, then reached for Anatole’s and gulped it down as well. The crowd gathered around him were chanting, and he pulled a young woman into his lap, kissing her fiercely, and a roar of approval went up.

He pulled her back up against him, and she giggled madly. 

“I heard you were a rake, Officer Dolokhov.”

He smiled at her, and his hands traveled from her back to her waist. He shifted her in his lap, lifting his hips up, showing her just how much of a rake he felt, at that moment. 

“You have no idea,” he said, and pressed his mouth gently to the bare skin at the low neckline of her dress. He nuzzled his moustache against her skin, tickling her, and she laughed. 

“Dolokhov!” Anatole’s hand came down on his shoulder, 

“Occupied,” he murmured, and flicked his tongue underneath the fabric. The girl gasped, moving herself closer, and he smiled in triumph. He pressed a trail of kisses up to her throat, speaking against her skin.

“Or would you like to join me in making sure this young lady is entertained, tonight?”

Anatole only grinned.

“Dolokhov, this is my friend, Pyotr Bezukhov. He’s a good fellow.”

Dolokhov finally lifted his head from his ministrations, holding the girl steady on his lap, and shook his dark hair back to study the new man hovering nearby. 

They were similar in age, although perhaps Pyotr was a few years younger. He was tall, with light-coloured hair and spectacles. He was standing awkwardly still, at odds with the shouts and revelry around him, but was wearing a pleasant, curious smile. 

Dolokhov immediately liked him. 

“You look as if you’re in the wrong place, Pyotr.” he said, lifting the woman away and rising from his chair.

Pyotr smiled again, nervously. 

“Oh, everyone calls me Pierre.” He tugged at his cravat. “Anatole had suggested that I come to visit and promised some fun-”

He yelped and stepped back as a young woman ran by wearing nothing but a petticoat, wine sloshing from her cup and splashing to her chest, Timokhin in hot pursuit of her. He caught up with her, then pinned her to the wall, taking the wineglass out of her hand and smashing it exuberantly to the floor behind him.

Pierre’s eyes grew round, and his earnest, innocent shock made Dolokhov exchange a grin with Anatole. He stepped forward and threw his arm around Pierre’s shoulders. He grabbed a half-empty bottle of vodka from the table and pushed it into Pierre’s hands. 

“Come with me, Pierre. We can do a damn sight better than “fun.”

*****

“Good morning.” A voice was cooing in his ear, and Dolokhov received a blast of alcohol-soaked breath on his cheek before he felt lips nibbling on his earlobe.

He groaned. The sunlight through the window was blinding. He turned over in bed.

He threw an arm across his eyes, trying to blot out the sunshine. His entire head was a dull ache against the pillow.

“Goodness.” The sound of giggling, and he could feel cool fingers dancing up his bare thigh.

“You’re standing at attention, soldier.” More laughter, and a return of kisses to his face. God, his head was pounding, and all that bright light was absolute murder.

Dolokhov sat up abruptly, causing the young woman to fall away from him. 

“Excuse me!” she said, sitting up as well. 

He threw his legs over the side, then lurched up, walking unsteadily to the window. 

“Fyodor, come back to bed.”

“It’s too bloody bright in here.”

He drew the curtains, blinking, and scrubbed a hand down his jaw. He looked over at the woman sitting in his bed, the sheets drawn up against her chest, pouting at him. 

_Arina._ Her name; a moment of clarity in his cottoned thoughts.

“When do you leave for France?” 

“Austria.”

“But,” she wrinkled her nose in confusion, “Napoleon is French.”

“And his army has taken Austria.”

She laughed, waving her hand as if to say one was the same as the other.

“You know what I mean.”

“I know that they are separate countries.”

“What I know, Officer Dolokhov,” she giggled, and threw the sheets off, exposing her naked body, “is that I only got a taste of you last night, and I rather feel like more.”

He decided that his head didn’t hurt that much after all. He strode to the bed and crawled up it, pausing just in front of her, and slowly lowered his mouth to the soft mound of her breast.

He was rewarded with a gasp, and fingers in his hair. 

“I warn you, I bite,” he growled, and caught a peaked nipple gently between his teeth. 

“I said I wanted a taste of you,” Arina said, and Dolokhov sat up, shifting even closer. 

“I’d rather it the other way round,” he grinned, and pounced, as she squealed in delight. 

*****

Later, having extracted himself from Arina’s clutches with a baseless promise of calling on her soon, Dolokhov shut the door and leaned against it, taking a deep breath. Then, he washed and dressed in civilian clothes and made his way to the dining room, picking his way through the debris of the previous night. 

In the dining room, to his surprise, was Pierre, wincing as he picked up a teacup and drank from it. He looked up at Dolokhov and gave a smile of genuine pleasure. 

“Dolokhov! I thought I’d be breakfasting alone; from what I remember, Anatole never rises before noon.”

“Ah, but Anatole isn’t in the military,” Dolokhov said, and they shared a friendly smile as he sat across from Pierre.

“Yes, and neither am I. Nor could I ever be. It fascinates me, though.”

“Nothing fascinating about it. Routine and order.”

“You don’t strike me as a man who craves those things.”

Dolokhov let out a single note of laughter.

“No. But the army was the only road that lay open to me.”

Pierre took a bite of bread.

“Your accent is pure Moscow.”

“Correct.”

“Do you miss home?”

Dolokhov leaned back in his chair, thinking of his mother and invalid sister. He thought of the years he had spent taking care of them, his love for them battling the need to escape the suffocating atmosphere of their house. 

He liked Pierre, and something about the man’s innocent curiosity invited trust.

“I can’t think of a place I was more ready to leave behind.”

Pierre studied him above the gold rim of his spectacles. 

“So the army was your way out.”

“That is it exactly.”

“A commission is not cheap.”

Dolokhov met Pierre’s piercing gaze, and in a moment of pure honesty, showed his hand.

“I paid for it by gambling for it.” He cleared his throat. “Gambling with some deception, that is.”

Pierre froze, shocked, then a river of gentle laughter escaped him. 

“What a thing to admit, Fedya!”

Dolokhov grinned.

“I don’t have the luxury of being mysterious.”

“So it’s true what they say - you are a cardsharp.”

Dolokhov’s eyes sparkled. 

“Show me the proof.”

Pierre laughed again, shaking his head.

“You have such a smooth way about you, Dolokhov; nobody would believe it even if I did expose your story.”

“Correct again.”

Pierre’s smile lessened. 

“Poverty has driven greater men to do much worse, but be careful, Dolokhov. I think you are better than that.”

“I am no better than anyone else.”

Pierre shook his head, preparing to argue, but Dolokhov gave him a warning smile, and Pierre dropped the matter. Dolokhov began to butter a piece of bread.

“Anatole said you are a friend of Prince Andrei Bolkonsky.”

“Yes, he is so good to me. Although-”

Dolokhov filled in the blank. 

“Although he moves in different circles than we do.”

Pierre nodded gratefully. 

“I get nervous in salons and high society. I don’t know how to talk to people easily.” He looked down, fingers twisting. 

“My father is the grand Russian Count Bezhukhov, but I am-” he paused, looking down at his lap, “illegitimate. My mother was a nobody.”

Dolokhov leaned forward, fierce sincerity burning in his eyes.

“That doesn’t matter. I am speaking with a good man. That is what counts.”

Pierre looked up and gave him a grateful smile.

“I don’t know. I don’t seem to have much luck.”

Dolokhov shrugged before taking a bite of his own breakfast.

“So make your own.”

Pierre straightened his shoulders.

“I shall. You know, I think I’ll go to Anna Pávlovna’s salon, this afternoon. Andrei will be there, and I’m sure I can make an attempt at conversation.”

“I’m sure you can.”

“Dolokhov, you’ve inspired me. I will indeed make my own luck. You’re looking at a new man. No more wild nights, for me. The women, the drinking, I will remain strong.”

Dolokhov took a sip of his tea, watching Pierre. There was something inherently noble and fair, about this man. No falseness, or coy pretense, like so many of the people Dolokhov had met over the past weeks.

He nodded at his new friend.

“As you say, Petrushka.”

*****

_As Dolokhov began to slip, his head and arm wavered still more with the strain. One hand moved as if to clutch the window sill, but refrained from touching it. Pierre again covered his eyes and thought he would never open them again. Suddenly he was aware of a stir all around. He looked up: Dólokhov was standing on the window sill, with a pale but radiant face._

_“It’s empty.”_

_He threw the bottle to the Englishman, who caught it neatly. Dólokhov jumped down. He smelt strongly of rum._

_-Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace_

That night was another party, but as with each of them so far, wilder and larger than the last.  
The night wore on with no sign of Pierre. The drinks disappeared fast and easy, and the evening turned over from revelry to pure drunken bravado. Some English soldiers had arrived, mixing with the Russians, nobody able to understand each other beyond enthusiastic brandishings of rum and vodka bottles. 

Dolokhov, one of the few having bothered to pick up French, which the Englishmen could speak, was pulled in all directions, laughing and translating the excited, broken phrases of the many conversations in the room, and encouraging dangerous bets.

Someone had brought a bear that was caught halfway between adult and cub, and three of the officers had him by a chain, romping around with him in the next room. Somebody else smashed the front room window, and Anatole laughed at the broken panes of glass so hard that he was slumped against the wall, Dolokhov pulling him up again and handing him a bottle of champagne, which Anatole shook, spraying foam liberally onto anyone and everything in his path.

A few of the men had removed the window pane entirely away, lifting it up, and Dolokhov strode over, an idea forming.

“No no, over there, over there!” he ordered, pointing to the corner. 

“Dolokhov!” He turned around to see Anatole’s arm around Pierre’s shoulders. A flare of disappointment; Pierre had gone back on his own word. 

But it was swiftly replaced by mischievous happiness. 

He strode forward, not saying anything, holding the drink out. Pierre took it and forced it down, then gamely threw the glass over his shoulder, smiling. 

“Well done, Petrushka!” exclaimed Dolokhov, delighted, and grabbed Pierre and kissed him in congratulations. Dolokhov had his friend back, for one more night of carousing, and he would make it worth their while. 

Dolokhov jumped onto the windowsill. 

“Listen!” he shouted in French, and the room fell silent. 

“I bet fifty imperials that I will drink a whole bottle of rum without taking it from my mouth, standing outside the window on this spot, without holding on to anything.”*

He repeated his bet in Russian, and the men strode forward, money in their hands.

“Dolokhov!” pleaded Pierre, looking up at him with worried eyes. 

“It is madness; you’ll fall to your death!”

“Yes, I say, this is folly! He’ll be killed,” said another soldier, agreeing. 

But Dolokhov felt a wild, pervasive streak running through him. It was a devil’s baptism; if he could do this stupid, silly thing, then he would prove himself invisible, somehow. If he could do this, he could survive Napoleon’s army. 

Anatole brandished the bottle of rum, and Dolokhov took it, tilting his head back and letting the golden sting of it run down his throat. 

Like water, he thought, and was halfway through before his chest was heaving. His throat burned, and he wanted desperately to cough, but he kept swallowing, his whole torso felt aflame, and his hand strayed to the side of the window, clutching at nothing but its own fist. He felt his balance go, and then a stomach-dropping moment of weightlessness, before he opened his squeezed-shut eyes to realize the bottle was empty, clenched between his teeth, and the room had erupted into cheering. 

He raised his arms, throwing them down again, and locked eyes with Pierre, who looked as if he was ready to faint. 

Dolokhov jumped down, wavering but still standing, as he was crowded with money and exclamations. 

He grinned. 

“Did I see a bear, earlier?” he shouted, and the crowd screamed its approval.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *That blink-and-you'll miss it shot of Dolokhov drinking from a bottle in the window, then raising his arms, is this scene from the book, obviously. It was fun, on the re-read, to realize that! 
> 
> *It's canon that Dolokhov speaks French, and actually, Tolstoy mentions it a few times, in this scene and in later ones, that he's one of the few soldiers in his regiment that is able to. (In one chapter, the Russian soldiers are lined up facing the French, pre-battle, and Dolokhov is the only one who can taunt them in the right language, scoundrel that he is.🙄😆)


	3. Dishonour & Determination

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fedya's partying catches up to him, and sparks a new course of action.

_Dólokhov slowly straightened his bent knee, looking straight with his clear, insolent eyes in the general’s face._

_“Off with [your coat]... Sergeant major! You rascal, you...” he did not finish._

_“General, I must obey orders, but I am not bound to endure...” Dólokhov hurriedly interrupted._

_“No talking, no talking!”_

_“Not bound to endure insults,” Dólokhov concluded in loud, ringing tones._

_The eyes of the general and the soldier met._

_“I request you to have the goodness to change your coat,” the general said as he turned away.  
-Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace_

“A bear.”

Seated at his desk, General Semenov gave a beleaguered sigh. He glared sternly at Dolokhov, who remained standing at attention; his steel posture giving no indication of his inner torment. 

He had washed and thrown himself into his uniform a mere hour ago; he had awoken late and stumbled about the house, tripping over empty bottles and waving off Anatole’s amused commentary from the couch. 

Dolokhov hadn’t eaten, having neither the stomach nor the time for it. He had shoveled handfuls of snow into his mouth on the walk over, relishing the sharp cold of it. A band of iron behind his eyes was pummeling pain into his skull. He suspected he was still slightly drunk. 

“We have twenty-six different civilians who witnessed you tying a live bear to that policeman. It took local authorities two hours to fish them out of the canal!”

Snow was beginning to drift down outside the General’s office window, slanting through the grey afternoon light, accumulating in white sheets on the building rooftops.

“It’s a miracle the man was alive.”

Yes, and thank God for that. Dolokhov barely remembered the whole affair. He recalled the rum, then jumping down from the window and feeling invincible. Looking for the bear. Through the haze of alcohol, the animal had seemed like a harmless, overgrown cub. Pierre had shouted something about wild things needing fresh air.

And after that...Dolokhov could remember cobblestones, uneven beneath him as he lay on them, struggling with ropes...a couple fellows had a torch…

He couldn’t even picture a policeman.

Semenov was looking at Dolokhov with a combination of disbelief and disgust. 

“I need hardly remind you that such behaviour is not at all fitting an officer of His Majesty the Emperor’s Imperial Army.”

Dolokhov didn’t reply. There was nothing to say, he could only await whatever punishment they decided on. Mucking out the stalls, most likely. Perhaps kitchen duty, as well. What he wouldn’t give for some water. He swallowed.

His eyes traveled to the general’s assistant, who stood nearby, transcribing the hearing, and the Commander, serving as both authority and witness.

“Fyodor Ivanovich Dolokhov, you are hereby stripped of the position of Officer, and reduced to the general ranks. You will turn over your hussar’s jacket and fight in the blue of a front line soldier.”

At this, Dolokhov snapped his attention back to the General.

No.

He could tolerate anything but a step backwards. The army, the move to Petersburg, it was all meant as an opportunity to fight against the restraint of his past.

“General Semenov. It is my understanding that-”

“You do not address me, soldier!” snarled the General, but Dolokhov, undaunted and now desperate, kept going.

“I am prepared to accept any disciplinary action meted, and will serve-”

“You are nothing! You are a poor man from an inconsequential family, born in squalor and one of the thousands of nobodies from Moscow!”

“No matter my background, I am still an Officer of His Majesty the Emperor’s Imperial Army.”

"You have embarrassed the station of Officer and made a mockery of the Russian Military!”

The General had risen from his chair, yelling, spittle flying from his mouth, and slammed his fist down onto his desk. 

“Reduced to the ranks. Dismissed!”

*****

It was snowing heavily by the time Dolokhov stepped outside in nothing but a long blue soldier’s coat, the officers standing guard at the barracks entrance eyeing him with pity. 

He marched furiously out into the whirling snow. He needed to walk; anger and frustration was seething through him.

Stripped of the title of Officer.

He turned a corner and down a quieter street, stomping through the rapidly accumulating mounds of fluffy snow, relishing the soft, cool flakes stinging his face. 

He knew Pierre was controlling scandal by leaving Petersburg for Moscow, knew that Anatole’s Kuragin family history protected him from any serious consequences.

His own fate was not so easily bought with status and wealth.

Dolokhov slowed his pace, then came to a stop, tilting his head back and staring up into the grey slate of sky above him, the dizzying tumult of endless flakes hurrying down around him. 

Reduced to the general ranks.

He would be at the very front. He had been in battle once before, and he knew what awaited the poor souls manning the front lines.

He felt overly warm. The emotions he had been steadily keeping at bay for the past two weeks came rushing in at him. He closed his eyes, and the laughing, leering faces of the men and women of the past two weeks swam before him, the endless drinking, the gambling, the women in his bed. 

The hope and determination that had driven him through it all, pushed him farther, turned suddenly sour in his gut, and anger at his own folly snaked into his blood.

Dolokhov opened his eyes, stumbled forward, and vomited into the snow.

*****

_“I say, come round some evening and we’ll have a game of faro!” said Zherkóv._

_“Why, have you too much money?” Dolokhov answered coldly._

_“Do come.”_

_“I can’t. I’ve sworn not to. I won’t drink and won’t play till I get reinstated.”  
-Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace_

At Anatole’s, he strode into the parlour, dropping onto a chair across from Anatole, who was lounging opposite.

“Good God, Dolokhov. You look terrible. What did they do to you?”

“I’m not an Officer any longer.”

Anatole waited.

“I’m disgraced, and when the battle begins, I’m at the receiving end of the first bayonet.”

Dolokhov threw his head back and looked at the ceiling. 

“I’m a dead man.”

Anatole stood, unable to make sense of his friend’s black mood.

“You need a drink.”

Dolokhov groaned, throwing his head forward and putting his hand out in front of him. 

“That’s the last bloody thing I need.”

He stood as well, shook his head, and began to pace.

“I’m going to prove myself.”

“Prove yourself?”

Dolokhov ran a hand through his hair, nodding. 

“I swear it. No more drinking or gambling. And we leave for Austria tomorrow; I’m going to fight like the devil on the battlefield.”

Anatole took in the wild look on his friend’s face, the fierce expression, the rigid determination radiating from his frame. It was slightly alarming.

“Come Fedya, don’t take it all so seriously. You’ll get yourself killed.”

Dolokhov stopped walking to and fro and slammed his fist into his hand.

“I vow it, Anatole. I’ll damn well get reinstated as Officer, or die trying.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Both conversations that are quoted from the book, actually take place later on, on the battlefield, with a different General. I've clipped it and placed it earlier in the timeline, instead, to show that Dolokhov both has quite a bit of fire in him. I also thought that it's quite interesting that he makes a vow to not stop fighting until he's reinstated - I thought it was sort of a clue for how fierce of a soldier he is. Warning: (Canon!) whump ahead!


	4. Bayonets & Bravery

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dolokhov fights on the Austrian battlefields, and must prove himself to win back his Officer's title.

_But Dólokhov did not go away; he untied the handkerchief around his head, pulled it off, and showed the blood congealed in his hair._

_“A bayonet wound. I remained at the front. Remember, your excellency!”_

_-Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace_

**November, 1805**

The Austrian fields lay wide and bleak before the men of the Russian and French armies; thousands upon thousands of faces took in the view of their fate. Two long rows of men faced each other on opposing hillsides, their respective armies behind them, crowded with more bodies and horses. Even farther up were the commanding officers and generals’ tents, where higher-ranking men used maps and whims to play with lives.

In the front row of the Russian line stood Dolokhov, his chest rising and falling in calm, even breaths. Half a mile in front of him sprawled a line of heavy cannons, dull and black in the light. Abandoned bayonets lay scattered as far as the eye could see; thin pens of death, quiet and still in their pools of bloody ink. 

In moments, he would hear the clear call of the bugle, hear the roar of the charge, and he would run straight towards those cannons. Straight to his death, most likely. He wasn’t a fool. 

And yet. There was a chance. A chance that he could cheat destiny; a chance he could trick Death. And what was he, if not a gambler?

Dolokhov smiled grimly to himself. He would run straight at his own fate, stare death in the face and laugh at it. After all; he had nothing to lose. 

There it was; the clear silver notes of the bugle’s battle call trilling into the morning, the last piece of music most of these men would hear. The stomping of feet began as the armies raced towards each other, the building crescendo of noise thundering as the hundreds of sets of lungs at the front screamed their echo of the command to charge.

Dolokhov was running without thinking, caught up in the madness of a fight beyond his own control. The wicked glint of bayonet blades sparkled menacingly just ahead of him, screaming French faces matching his own, feral expression, then he was among them, waiting for the fatal bite into his body.

It didn’t come. 

Instead, he was fighting, slicing, throwing his body one way before it was tossed another; it was chaotic, bloody death, men falling around him, bodies dropping heavily to the grass and mud.

The earth shook, the boom of a cannon rocked his world sideways, and he could barely see through the rippling smoke. 

He moved forward, tripping over arms and legs, only some of them attached to bodies. The man right in front of him dropped like a stone, the lead shot exploding his hair and skull fragments into Dolokhov’s face, and Fedya whipped himself to the side, away from the thrust of a blade where the other man’s head had been.

He didn’t feel it, at first. He thought he had been quick enough, but as he lunged further away, he side of his head felt strange, and when he put up an unsteady hand to wipe away the sweat from his face he saw that it came back bloody.

Now he could feel it, each throb sending a wave of pain to his fingertips, each breath driving the pain back up again, in a horrendous loop.

He yelled and cursed as he swung his bayonet, plunging it into a French soldier running at him, then knelt on another man’s chest, shouldering his rifle and firing, barely taking time to aim. He wouldn’t let the fire in his head take over; he would fight against it until he fell down dead.

_Fight Death, and win._

It was his only mantra, churning on repeat. It played over and over as he wove through the melee, tripping on a lone foot, detached from its owner. 

He stumbled upright, only for another cannon blast to shake the earth beneath him, and he fell to his knees. He crawled forward, ears ringing, unable to hear the screams of the open mouths of the men around him, and stood back up. 

The cruel edge of his own bayonet was shining ruby in the oblivious sun, his vision was going red, and the last thing he thought of, before collapsing to the mud a final time, was that he had failed, after all. 

*****

_“By the way, your excellency, I should inform you,” he continued, [...] “that Private Dólokhov, who was reduced to the ranks, took a French officer prisoner in my presence and particularly distinguished himself.”  
-Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace_

Everything was tinged dark grey. 

It was dusk, and the storm of battle had played out its worst; the fields were strangely silent. He turned his cheek gratefully into the cold mud; the side of his head felt wooden and strange, and very hot. He lifted a tentative hand to it, and touched sticky hair that had become plastered to his scalp. 

He rolled and got to his knees, trying to make sense of time and place.

A man came up behind him, gripping his shoulder and mumbling in broken French before falling forward to the ground, dragging Dolokhov down with him. 

Fedya turned over and faced the man, who was still clutching at him. He was dressed in French colours. His eyes were glassy, twin mirrors of agony.

“Tue moi.”

 _Kill me._

Dolokhov looked down between them, and saw that the man’s front was sliced open from throat to waist, entrails wet and glistening. He only had a few minutes of life belonging to him as it was.

“Tue moi,” he gasped again, streaks of tears glowing on his cheeks.

His hands shook, but Dolokhov’s blade aimed true as he plunged his knife straight into the man’s heart, grunting with the effort of pushing through skin and muscle. 

“Soit en paix,” he murmured as the man’s eyes fluttered closed, or thought he did; his mouth didn’t seem to be working. 

Then he was upright, he was walking. He felt frozen, and was mildly surprised that his hands followed his brain’s order to pull gloves from his soldier’s coat pocket and pull them on.

Somebody was calling his name from a great distance; no, it was Timokhin, immediately at his left. Clarity returned with his own gasp of air, and he could hear what Timokhin was saying,

“I’m alive, I’m alive, I’m alive, I’m alive-”

Dolokhov gripped him by the shoulders, looked him right in the eyes and spoke the only thing he was capable of. His lips could barely form the words; his face felt carved from ice.

“Keep moving. Walk forward.”

Dolokhov turned them both around, and only now did he realize that they were behind French lines. There was an eerie silence.

Timokhin was limping, when Dolokhov looked down he could see bone showing through at his friend’s ankle, the foot turned in at an odd angle. Timokhin looked down as well, and the sight of it caused him to whimper. He stopped, and let himself tumble down. 

“No,” said Dolokhov, but Timokhin began to babble. 

“My home, my wife, my wife, my wife-”

“Collect yourself,” Dolokhov said, between his teeth, sinking to his knees, but Timokhin fought him off, tears shining in his eyes. 

“My wife, my wife, my home, my wife-”

“Blast damn you, get up and walk, and then you can return home and pound your wife into bloody oblivion! You’re not dead yet, on your feet, man!”

Timokhin blinked into startled silence, and Dolokhov grinned. It felt good; it warmed his face. 

“Right. Come on, brother. Walk.”

Timokhin put all his weight onto Dolokhov, who maneuvered his arm around him, and kept them both going towards the Russian side.

Pure cold had descended along with the blanket of night; the stiffened and outstretched fingers of the dead men at their feet sparkled with frost, blood-drenched patches of mud had become slippery with ice.

The far-off flare of a rifle shot cracked through the air, followed swiftly by a high-pitched scream of agony. Timokhin’s weight gave out, but Dolokhov’s grip kept him upright.

“I see someone,” whispered Timokhin, pointing far ahead, where a fire had sparked to life atop a small embankment. Dolokhov clapped a hand over his mouth. 

“En francais,” Dolokhov hissed. 

Timokhin shook his head wildly, and Dolokhov realized that he couldn’t speak the language. He motioned for Timokhin to stay there, and his friend sank gratefully to the ground.

Dolokhov approached the small rise slowly. He had stopped shaking; blind determination had him walking forward. This fire would be where he met his fate, either way. 

His footfalls were hushed in the muddy ground, and although he couldn’t achieve complete silence, the crackling of the fire provided some cover. Dolokhov dropped to the frosty ground, inching himself up the small bank on his stomach. He could feel the freezing mud beneath him.

There. 

Beneath him, three French soldiers were laughing and speaking in low voices. Just beyond, at the edge of the firelight, Dolokhov could see half a dozen Russian soldiers, bound and huddled together. Their faces were pale, their bodies slumped; even from this distance Dolokhov would bet that the unearthly stillness of one near the end meant he was dead. He squinted; he could barely make them out, but he recognized Dimitri, and-

General Semenov.

Fedya’s heart was pumping; adrenaline was coursing through him. He had a rifle with a whole round of lead. If he felled one of the French soldiers, that would even the odds. He wouldn’t have time to reload, but it made the gamble worth taking.

His breath came rapidly as he checked his powder; it looked dry. His wadding cloth was soaked; nevermind, it would help with lubrication of the barrel. He loaded quickly, his fingers swift and sure as they had ever been; he was calm with single-minded purpose. He tapped the side of the barrel a few times with the flat of his gloved hand, settling the powder, then brought it up against his shoulder, lining up his mark. 

The powder caught, the flint sparked, and the crack of the rifle ripped apart the night. 

One of the French soldiers dropped sideways; the lead slamming straight into the side of his neck.

The other two jumped up to see a Russian soldier with a soaked cloth tied around his head, dried blood all down the side of his face and neck, roaring at the top of his lungs, come running down the slope. 

“C'est le diable!” cried one of the French soldiers, scrambling backwards, but too late: Dolokhov ran straight at him and thrust the blade of his bayonet into his chest. 

The Russian prisoners cheered.

The other soldier had raised his gun and fired, but Dolokhov had tumbled to the ground with his foe, and now jumped up, wrenching his weapon out of the dead man. 

The two men stood facing each other, blades in hand. Dolokhov smiled coldly, his green eyes taunting in the flickering light cast by the fire. 

“Let us see whether your Bonaparte has trained you as a match to Russian fury,” taunted Dolokhov, but the Frenchman interrupted him.

“Not _Bonaparte._ He is the Emperor! Sacré nom...!” he said, angrily. *

“The devil skin your Emperor.” *

The French soldier cursed angrily and thrust forward, but Dolokhov side stepped the attack and matched it with his own, cutting deep into the soldier’s leg. The man cried out before falling backwards. He was clutching his thigh, moaning. 

“I won’t kill you,” said Dolokhov icily. “You’re the prisoner, now.”

He strode over to his fellow soldiers, cutting their ropes, leaving the General for last. He said nothing, but their eyes met, and the General nodded.

The soldiers bustled efficiently around the site, two going over to the Frenchman still wounded and groaning, the rest crowding around Dolokhov. 

“Your head, comrade.”

Dolohov shook off his concern, as another said,

“Come with us, if we go through the woods we can loop back into Russian territory.”

“I left a man behind, Officer Timokhin Lebedev. His foot is injured, I’m going back for him.”

“Don’t be stupid. This place is crawling with French, and it’s black as pitch.”

Dolokhov’s mouth thinned into a determined line.

“I won’t leave him.”

“Then I will send men with you.”

This last was said by the General, who had come forward. Dolokhov saluted him warily. 

“Take two men, Officer Dolokhov, and keep sharp. On your return, we will head through the woods and back to the Russian side.”

Officer Dolokhov. 

Fedya noted the return of the title, but merely put his boots together and said, 

“General.”

He turned, and the little group began to make their way back in the dark, where Timokhin lay. And as they trod silently on, the dark closing in around them, there was only one thought that lay in Dolokhov’s head, pounding its refrain along with the wound, the underlying pain of which had begun to pull at him.

_I am alive. I gambled with Death, and I won._

*****

“Ready when you are, soldier.”

Dolokhov looked up from watching the proceedings in the medical tent around him to see an exhausted looking medical officer standing in front of him with a needle and thread.

He nodded. 

“Ready.”

The officer reached out and turned Dolokov’s head to the side. 

“Wide, but not deep. Should be quick work.” He took a small bottle of vodka from his apron pocket.  
“No laudanum, but we have enough of this for you to take a swallow,” he said briskly. 

Dolokhov glanced over at the semi-conscious man on the pallet beside him, whose knee had been blown out from a musket shot; he hadn’t stopped his restless, tortured moaning for the past hour. 

Fedya shook his head. 

“Save mine for him.”

The medic shrugged, too busy and weary to react, and adjusted the tilt of Dolokhov’s head. 

“Still as you can, soldier.”

The needle bit down, and Dolokhov ground his teeth. The wound had dulled into a sort of low-level pain, but this added a fierce and fresh layer. He clenched his fist, embracing the sting, and with every torturous loop, he thought again and again,

_I won._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Once again, I've put an astrix beside quotes from the book. 
> 
> Tolstoy doesn't actually write Dolohov in this particular battle beyond the first rush; he says that Dolokhov is the very first man to kill a French soldier, he runs forward with Timokhin at his side and "grabs the Frenchman by the collar and kills him," and then beyond that, we don't hear from him until afterwards, when we learn that he distinguished himself. We're not told specifically how, beyond what I've included: he took a French officer prisoner at some point, and somehow got a head wound. 
> 
> Basically, I took that as an open invitation to interpret how I like. 😄


	5. Temptation & Tension

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dolokhov adjusts to life on leave, and is invited to spend time with Pierre, the newly married Count Bezukhov.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh, Dolokhov. It's only just beginning.

**March 1806**

It took just over six weeks of leave for Dolokhov to realize that civilian life was left forever altered.

Upon his immediate return to Moscow, he visited his mother and sister, gave them as much money as he could, chopped mountains of firewood for their stove, patched a hole in the wall and fixed a broken door hinge. He waved away his sister’s baked Pryanik and his mother’s concern, and nearly suffocated under the weight of their worried, loving expressions. 

Then he bid them farewell, eager to live freely and taste Petersberg again before reporting for duty in two months. 

The capital was its glittering, lively self, and yet, something had inextricably changed. 

A good portion of the surviving men from his regiment had been shaken enough that they quickly sought the comfort of a hasty marriage. A few found solace in transfers to the reserve ranks, hoping to avoid the summons to return to Napoleon’s graveyard. They would have no such luck, Dolokhov knew.  
Anatole was still being carted around by his father, who hoped to find a good match for his son. Timokhin was recovering happily at home. 

Feeling aimless, Dolokhov found himself drinking and gambling harder than ever, chasing a high that he could no longer reach. He had fast run out of remaining funds. At the end of the week, he wouldn’t be able to continue to rent the rooms he was staying in. He was aware of a mounting need for money, but was too unwilling to plan ahead.

Seduction was too easy; women practically fell onto his lap, and whereas before he would have found this delightful, now it bored him. Parties and gossip felt even sillier and more gratuitous when compared to the gruesome, death-saturated memories of battle. He half-dreaded returning to war, half-craved the merciless simplicity of it.

When he ran into Pierre, walking across the bridge during a restless evening walk, it was a godsend. He had been stalking at a rapid pace across the frosty incline, trying to fend off the black mood that was threatening to settle in, when they spotted each other.

“Bezukhov!”

“Dolokhov! I had heard you were returned!”

They embraced. Dolokhov chuckled, appraising Pierre’s fine clothes.

“I am gone a mere half year and I return to find you the sole inheritor of a fortune! It’s all anyone’s been talking about. Count Bezukhov! You suit it.”

“Oh no, I don’t at all. So much money, Dolokhov! So many decisions! What am I to do with such riches?”

“Spend it,” Dolokhov advised, laughing. “Life is too damn short.”

“And look at you! I don’t know if I’ve seen you ever so well turned out, and in civilian clothes!”

“That is because you have seen me either inside a uniform, or half-dressed, inside a woman.”

Pierre laughed heartily. 

“I am glad to see the front lines haven’t changed you.”

Dolokhov flashed a grin. 

“Can’t teach an old demon new tricks. That doesn’t apply to you, though, my friend: I heard a rumour that you are recently married.”

Pierre’s face became illuminated by a shy smile.

“You heard correctly.”

Dolokhov tilted his head. He hadn’t seen Helene Kuragin since his youth, but if she was anything like her brother, he couldn’t think of a less likely match for Pierre. Still, what business was it of his?

Pierre clasped him on the shoulder. 

“Dolokhov. I am in awe of what you and our fellow countrymen have done, fighting Napoleon.”

Fedya shrugged off his friend’s earnest expression, but Pierre continued.

“I am serious. When are you due to return?”

“Not for another two months.”

“Where are you staying?”

Dolokhov hesitated. Pride rose around him like a shield, but Pierre squeezed his shoulder and said, 

“It doesn’t matter. For the next two months, you are staying with me.”

*****

_“There is something nasty, something wrong, in the feeling she excites in me. I have been told that her brother Anatole was in love with her and she with him [...] It’s bad....” he reflected, but while he was thinking this (the reflection was still incomplete), he caught himself smiling and was conscious that another line of thought had sprung up, and while thinking of her worthlessness he was also dreaming of how she would be his wife, how she would love him quite differently, and how all he had thought and heard of her might be false.”_

_-Pierre’s thoughts on Helene, Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace_

Pierre’s estate was grand. Dolokhov could see stately columns along the front, the many frost-covered windows sparkling in the afternoon brightness, the house rising up from the vast garden surrounding it.

Pierre came running out to meet him, arms outstretched, his face an open invitation of warmth and delight as Dolokhov stepped out of the carriage, smiling widely in return. 

“Come inside, come inside, my friend!” Pierre was beaming at him. “You must meet my wife!”

They walked inside, Dolokhov looking around at the wealth on display around him, as Pierre led him to an inner parlour. The Countess Bezukhov turned from the window, her hair as dark as Dolokhov remembered, her collected poise the same. 

She was a celebrated beauty, Dolokhov knew, but he still wasn’t prepared for the way her cunning eyes cut right through him. 

“Countess,” He took her hand, flipped it smoothly and pressed a lingering kiss to the centre of her palm, holding her eyes with his.

“Your wife is even more beautiful than I remember, Bezukhov.”

“Thank you, Dolokhov,” said Pierre, but Dolokhov was barely paying attention to him. Helene’s eyes were holding him captive.

“I understand you’re a war hero now.” She said it with a slight edge of mocking flirtation, which had him immediately match her tone.

“Well. You know, there are three things I love to do; fight, drink, and…” he turned to Pierre, pretending to deliberate, before turning back and letting his gaze pierce Helene’s. 

“-and I can’t remember the other one.”

She gave him a slight shake of her head in response, but interest flickered in her expression. 

God, if they were in any other situation, he’d have up against the wall by now, kissing that calculated smile from her lips.

As if divining his thoughts, her face took on an artful, knowing expression.

“I think you’re an absolute ruffian.”

Dolokhov’s heart picked up a wilder rhythm; who was this woman, looking him full in the face and calling him out with such silk-wrapped venom? His libido was rising, eagerly answering the call. 

He tilted his head, catching Pierre’s genial face before turning back to her, eyes sparkling. He knew his role.

“I can’t deny it.”

Helene looked at her husband before fixing her gaze back on Dolokhov, saying coolly,

“I’ll hope you’ll make yourself at home, here.” 

She swept past them both, leaving the parlour, and Dolokhov looked at Pierre’s indulgent smile before following her, grinning.

“Thank you; I shall.” He looked over his shoulder at Pierre, sticking his tongue out playfully. Pierre laughed, shaking his head and pointing. 

“Don’t, don’t-”

Dolokhov reversed his stride, laughing openly now, and went to Pierre, embracing him, as Pierre threw his arms around Fedya in return. 

“Let’s have a drink!”

*****

A week followed, in which Dolokhov found himself a daily observer of his friend’s new marriage. If he thought Pierre and Helene an odd match before; now he was certain of it. Pierre was content to stay and play cards with Dolokhov, and seemed to hold a genuine curiosity and concern for the friends and family he knew, while Helene was hardly home, her circle grander and more socially ambitious.

As the days passed, however, she seemed to deign to spend more time with Pierre, and by extension, Dolokhov. He had the curious sense that she was studying him; though in conversation, she found every opportunity to remind him of his lowly status as a soldier. 

At first, it was innocent. They had nothing but quick interactions between them; her challenging glances and his arch, playful replies: he was a born flirt, and he didn’t mean for it to go anywhere. 

However, Dolokhov was not a cautious man; he did nothing by halves, and those small moments grew steadily in number. From the start, there was something about her that reminded him of his own nature, and it called to him. He began to think of her, to seek her out, to stretch the time spent in her company longer. 

He was making his way to the library to write a letter to his sister the first time that it happened. Later on, he’d remember it as the kindling spark; the start of a fire that would consume them both. 

He nodded to her, offering a wolfish grin as they were about to pass each other, but she stopped directly in his path. He bowed. 

“Good morning, Countess.”

“Is it indeed? I would have called it dull, and I would have thought you shared that opinion.” Helene smiled at him; there was a rehearsed innocence to it. 

“I believe you’re in my way, solider.”

He bowed again, then straightened, not breaking eye contact. 

“My apologies, Countess.”

Her eyes gave him a leisurely sweep from top to bottom, lingering just below his waistline. Dolokhov experienced a swift kick of desire. 

She laughed; a soft calculation. “I was not complaining.”

Then she stood aside, clearly expecting him to move. He did, and could feel her eyes on his retreating back the whole length of the hall.

*****

Without entirely admitting it to himself, he began to desire her on a deeper level.

And he knew that she felt it, too. He suspected that her supposed disdain for his station and position veiled a hidden, matching desire.

After two weeks, Helene and Pierre had a few friends over for dinner and some dancing. As the night continued, Dolokhov tracked Helene’s every movement, and every time she caught him looking at her, that slow, knowing smile traveled across her face. 

When the dancing started, he walked right up to her, holding out his hand. She rose, taking it without a word.

They moved smoothly across the floor amid the other couples, looking at each other without speaking. 

“We make good partners, you and I,” Helene said suddenly, and he smiled. 

“We do.”

She pressed herself closer against him, and her whisper was a caress in his ear.

“I do not just refer to our dancing,” she said, and then pulled back to meet his eyes.

“There is something similar between us, some element we share.” He tried to ignore the surge of emotion at her words. He had thought the very same, when he met her. 

She recognized something in him, just as he did in her. A connection.

Helene was pressed indecently close to him, and he knew she could feel his body betraying his feelings. 

Her lips curled up, and reaching discreetly down between them, she gave him a generous stroke through his trousers.

His eyelids fluttered closed and he breathed heavily through his nose; his entire body gave a throb towards her touch.

She withdrew her hand, and he opened his eyes again to see her smiling up at him. He bent down to speak in her ear.

“Careful Helene,” he said, his voice low, and felt her shiver in response, “this is a dangerous game you’re playing.”

She drew back in his arms, and gave him a cruel smile. 

“Don’t be mistaken, Officer Dolokhov. We are both playing it.”

Fedya twirled them past Pierre, who gave them a pleased, happy smile.

Dolokhov spent the rest of the dance in loaded, agonizing silence; trapped between the hungry gaze of Helene, and the untroubled one of Pierre.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dolokhov and Helene's affair is reduced to just a few lines in the book; we only learn of it after the fact, via Pierre's thoughts as he sits across from Dolokhov and recalls a letter someone sent him telling him about the affair. (Just before he challenges Dolokhov.)
> 
> The scenes with Dolokhov and Helene and Pierre in the BBC version are entirely Andrew Davies having fun (and aren't we glad he wrote them!) 
> 
> I used those scenes and my own theories/interpretation to play out the affair how I wanted. :D


	6. Helene & Heartbreak

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dolokhov gives in.

_“Dólokhov, Mary Ivánovna’s son,” she said in a mysterious whisper, “has compromised her completely, they say. Pierre took him up, invited him to his house in Petersburg, and now... she has come here and that daredevil after her!” said Anna Mikháylovna, wishing to show her sympathy for Pierre, but by involuntary intonations and a half smile betraying her sympathy for the “daredevil,” as she called Dólokhov._

_-Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace_

The next morning, Dolokhov and Pierre breakfasted on their own; the staff informed Pierre that Helene had left to visit friends, with no immediate plans to return. Pierre seemed unsurprised by the news, as if it were a common occurrence, but the smile he gave Dolokhov was a sad one.

A number of days later, Pierre was away for a months’ business, and Dolokhov decided to head into the city to one of the more popular gambling dens. He was walking along a hallway when he spotted Helene in one of the small parlours, sitting at a writing table. 

He leaned against the doorframe, crossing his arms and waiting. A few seconds passed as her pen scratched along, then she broke the silence. 

“It is impolite to hover as you are, watching a lady as she writes her letters.”

“I’m wondering what kind of a lady leaves her husband for a full week without word of where she’s going, and no greeting whatsoever on her return.”

Helene kept writing, barely looking up from the paper.

“I’m hardly going to offer an explanation to you, Dolokhov. It’s not as if you’re a gentleman.”

“Yes, we’ve already established your opinion of me.”

At this, she did look up, and Dolokhov felt the familiar curl of desire steal through him. She smiled, as if sensing her power over him.

“If you insist on knowing, I was visiting my brother.”

“I insist on nothing.”

Helene stood and began to walk slowly towards him. Dolokhov straightened, watching her approach. 

She stopped a few feet in front of him, and they stared at each other, the clock ticking into the silence. This was it, he knew: they were on the precipice, about to fall. Helene’s eyes burned into his.

“I am not some common soldier’s evening amusement.”

“Any more than I am a plaything for a married lady of the house,” he returned, but it was too late; they were beyond flippant protestations, and they both knew it.

Helene leaned forward and pressed a painfully light kiss to his jaw. He closed his eyes, a man possessed, and turned his head, catching her lips softly with his. 

It was brief, a brush of his mouth against hers, but the hunger behind it had him trapped. 

Helene’s hand smoothed down his waistcoat, then lower. His erection jumped, and she laughed softly into his neck. 

“You want me.”

“Obviously,” he said, gritting his teeth. 

He was trying to remind himself of why this was a horrible thing to do, tried to tell himself that the triumphant look in her eyes bode nothing good, but all he could focus on was her hand stroking his length, pleasure tumbling through him, and it felt good, so damn _good_ , to lean into her touch. 

She looked at him, and he saw his own need reflected in her eyes as she smiled.

“So have me.” 

She lifted herself on her toes, her hand still stroking him, and kissed him. 

That was all it took. 

It was a relief to give in after the weeks of torment; a relief to stop fighting, to let himself get lost in the dizzying joy of it. Her tongue was meeting his, he was walking them both backwards and he had her pressed against the wall within seconds.

“Oh, God,” he breathed, raining kisses down her neck, his hands deftly exploring the curves he’d long been studying from afar. She was moaning into him, humping her body against his, gripping his collar hard. The softness of her skin against his mouth was blissful perfection, roaring through him and deafening any other thought. 

Helene’s fingers had undone his trousers, his hands were gathering her skirts higher, and she brought her leg against his hip. He barely took a few seconds to stop and lift her, bracing them both against the wall, and then Helene’s unerring bare hands were on him, guiding him to her soft heat, and he sank into her with a groan. 

Pleasure burst at the base of his spine and traveled to his fingertips. He wanted to slow down, to take his time, but Helene was grabbing at his collar, thrusting against him, and he was helpless against the urgency of her desire, intoxicated by his own lust.

He had one hand around her, one hand flattened against the wall, and she was bucking hard, matching each of his thrusts. He was slamming into her, sweat gathering at his temple, and she was crying out each time he drove into her. She slapped his cheek, hard, then pulled his face towards her, and it was a battle of tongues more than a kiss. She was tightening around him, he could feel her fingers rake his neck, and he swore into her mouth as his release came hurtling through him.

Helene threw her head back against the wall as her orgasm hit, and Dolokhov let himself go with a few last erratic thrusts, spilling himself into her. 

Afterwards, breathing heavy, he let her gently down and backed away, and she straightened her gown.

She swept past him, glided smoothly back to her writing desk, and sat down. The clock continued ticking, and Helene’s pen scratched on the paper again. 

Hours later, alone in his rooms, he examined himself in the mirror, searching for physical signs that showed his character: he was a man who betrayed his friends. He saw the rake of scratches Helene had left on one side of his neck.

And, in a flash gone so quickly he could have almost imagined it, he hated himself.

*****

When he had her a second time, it was in the upstairs hall of a dance they had both attended, separately. He had been walking up the stairs, holding her gaze as he came closer, and suddenly she was in his arms, and he needed her, right then. It was quick and rough on a settee by the window, he pushed inside her and it was over in a few strokes, he was grunting into her ear and she bit down on his lip, pulling so hard at his hair he had a headache for hours afterwards. 

And so it went.

*****

Pierre returned after four weeks, and the three of them ate lunch together, Dolokhov disgusted with his own behaviour. He thought himself a loyal man, and sitting across from the man whose friendship he valued did not sit well. 

And how could Pierre not _know?_

Dolokhov met Pierre’s eyes, willing his friend to somehow see what was happening, to confront him, to expose the whole sordid affair and ease the pressure of his guilt. He wanted a fight with lines drawn, he wanted Pierre to knock him down and break him apart.

Instead, Pierre smiled at him, then at Helene, and the meal continued in silence.

The next morning, Dolokhov rose early and went for a ride, galloping in the fresh air, relishing the brutal cold. When he returned to the stables, Helene was waiting for him. He dismounted and she walked up to him, running her fingers along the sleeve of his coat. 

“Not here.”

“But I am cold.”

He looked at her, then shook his coat off and threw it around her shoulders, pacing away from her. Helene frowned. 

“You are denying me.”

“Most assuredly.”

“What has changed?”

“Your husband is my friend.”

She scoffed. 

“That has hardly stopped you before.”

“I thought I could drive this out of myself; give into the temptation and be done with it. I thought Pierre would confront me.”

She looked at him in disbelief. 

“Men. You see what you want.”

“Pierre certainly does.”

“And your conscience is suddenly troubling you?”

He walked towards her again. 

“Do you not care if your husband finds out?”

She shrugged. “Then tell him. I dare you.”

“Is this a game to you?”

“It certainly is to you, Dolokhov.”

She leaned forward, kissing him, and then walked away, smiling at him over her shoulder. 

He was left burning with desire and anger. Anger at Pierre, anger at Helene. And most of all, anger at himself. 

*****

Dinner that night was torture of a new kind. Dolokhov did nothing to fill the silence, and Helene alternated between smiling demurely at Pierre and watching Dolokhov. 

He drank one glass of wine; downed another. A servant refilled his glass; he swallowed the whole thing without thinking.

Helene merely watched, eyes cast towards her plate, flicking up at him once with fire and challenge in them.

She wanted to play; he would play. 

He reached over and took a piece of potato from Pierre’s plate, placing it in his mouth and closing his eyes. He opened them to see Helene giving him a look of disapproval, and Pierre shaking his head as if it were a grand joke. 

Dolokhov closed his eyes again in mock rapture, and the anger, the coiled tension in him rose to the surface, as he said,

“Funny how it always tastes better when it comes from another man’s plate.”

Helene placed her fork down, and Pierre looked at Dolokhov, then tilted his head, shaking it and smiling, gesturing with his wine glass.

Dolokhov returned the smile, and watched as Helene glared at him, feeling that the stakes had changed, but at least, in this moment, he was winning.

*****

They were having breakfast a few days before Dolokhov was to report for duty, and the news from the front was bleak. Pierre closed the letter he was reading, and looked at Helene.

“I’m to visit the Rostovs. Come with me, my dear.”

Helene looked at Dolokhov, who met her eyes across the table. He half hoped she would go with her husband, and he would be relieved from his own temptation and the mess he'd created.

She smiled, then turned to Pierre.

“I have not been feeling well, Pierre. Go without me.”

“I won’t leave you, Helene.”

“I’ll hardly be alone. Dolokhov will be here.” 

The trunks were packed, the carriage was readied. Pierre said his goodbyes to Dolokhov and his wife and set off, smiling and waving as he rounded the corner, and Dolokhov and Helene stood in the drive, watching the carriage turn the corner and disappear out of sight. 

He offered her his arm, and they walked to the house, the tension thick. They headed into the foyer, and he guided them wordlessly into the dining room, knowing that as soon as he stopped moving, he wouldn’t be able to prevent himself from repeating the same awful mistake. Helene’s hands tightened on his jacket.

That was quite the display, at dinner.”

“It was you who dared me to say something.”

“I told you, Pierre sees what he wants. As far as he is concerned, I am an angel.”

At this, Dolokhov let out a bark of laughter. 

“If he knew who his wife was, it would break his heart.”

“Imagine if he knew how his friend contributed to that pain!”

He rounded on her. 

“You think I’m unaware of what I am?”

They were standing so close, and along with the anger, always with Helene, was the thrill of the fight, the bait between them both, the game at its height. 

He gave in first; he always did. As he lifted her up and onto the table, as she crawled backwards and he tracked her, as dishes and plates and saucers were pushed away and she lay back, pulling up her dress, as he hurriedly undid the flies of his trousers, desperate, as their bodies met and the spark between them caught, he thought that this was right: they deserved each other. 

“What a vile creature you are, Dolokhov,” she panted, as he thrust into her, the plates rattling.

“You love it,” he hissed, wondering if he was trying to convince her or himself, “You love it.”

*****

After, he stroked her cheek, and laughed softly into her hair. She tensed.

“What is it?”

“Shall we try a bed, one day?”

She didn’t laugh, but shoved hard at his collarbone, and he sat up off of her. 

“You speak as if this will continue.”

He took a breath, trying to gauge the shift in mood. 

“I know it cannot, I just-”

“You just stupidly assume there is something between us.”

He smiled to mask his confusion. 

“I think we both know that there is.”

She looked at him. 

“No. That was the last time.”

He laughed. 

“Somehow I doubt that, Helene.”

“I mean it. I am through with you.”

There was a new carelessness to her tone that chilled him. She swung her legs off the table, standing gracefully and taking great care to smooth her dress.

He paused, watching her, waiting for the moment where her lips would curve into that teasing smile, but she simply raised her head and stared at him as if she had never seen him before.

The air between them had changed, and Dolokhov didn’t understand how it had happened so rapidly. He felt as if he had tripped, unable to stop the inevitable crash. 

“We are-” He cleared his throat, trying to hold onto a sense of stability. “We share-”

“We are nothing.”

He stared at her, heart pounding.

“This meant nothing?”

“ _You_ mean nothing,” she clarified. “And I cannot be the object of scandal. You are an officer, a common soldier, a rake. You were an amusement.”

Dolokhov realized his hands were balled into fists at his side. It was on the tip of his tongue to say the words in his heart, to confess what he thought must be true. It had to be true; what else was the name for the connection they shared, if not love? 

He must have given something of his feelings away, because Helene, watching his internal agony play across his face, uttered a light trill of laughter.

“You thought you were the only one.”

She laughed again, louder and longer, the sound of it masking the splintering line cutting down his heart. 

What a fool he had been. 

Anger, satisfying and hot, flared to life.

“Pierre will find out.”

She smiled. 

“Pierre is a fool. And so was I. I thought you knew better than to involve your own feelings.” She pinned him with her cold expression. 

“You are leaving for the front, and I am a Countess. That is the way things are, Dolokhov. And that is how they will always be.”

She left him, on his knees on the dining room table, mouth open and hot emotion barreling through him, unable to fight against the inevitable truth of his world. After a few minutes, he slowly went to his rooms to pack his things, and it was hours later, leaning his forehead against the window of his own carriage, that he realized that he had never been so glad to be heading towards the carnage and death of the battlefield.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is definitely my own spin on things - Tolstoy leaves it pretty blank. I like to think that Dolokhov is, of course, responsible, but also that he feels deeply, and that on some twisted level, thinks they share a connection. He is only twenty-six here, and in my own imagination, this might be the first time he thinks he's in love.   
> I so desperately wish he could throw himself into Clara’s arms and she could make it all better!
> 
> Pierre does find out - and we all know what happens next!


	7. Darkness & the Duel

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dolokhov returns home after a long time at war, and is finally confronted by Pierre.

_Dólokhov—now an officer again—wounded in the arm, and on foot, with the regimental commander on horseback and some ten men of his company, represented all that was left of that whole regiment.  
-Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace_

**Pratzen Heights, Austrian Empire (modern-day Czech Republic) | March 1806-March 1807**

For months on end, Dolokhov threw himself into the fray of battle. He charged mindlessly at cannons and bayonets alike, driven by an internal anger and frustration at himself. The mess he had left behind in Petersberg might as well have been another lifetime; but the guilt and confliction he felt over Pierre and Helene remained strong. 

He reveled in the single-minded, blind purpose of survival. Kill or be killed, survive or die; war was brutally clear cut. 

He began to earn a reputation as a risk-taker. He volunteered for the front lines, asked to lead campaigns, and flung himself bodily into dangerous areas to haul out injured or fallen comrades. The other men called it bravery, but Dolokhov was simply using the only distraction available to him. 

He collected souvenirs to bring back to Moscow: a shining, pink welt across his right forearm from a bullet that grazed his skin, another rough and uneven scar on the top of his foot from an embedded piece of cannon shot that his fellow soldiers had to extract in the field, holding him down against the muddied ground. He had lost the ability to feel the tips of his fourth and fifth fingers of his left hand, left from a bout of frostbite as the months had turned hard and frigid. 

The Battle of Austerlitz became a great, fatal scythe, cutting men down by the tens of thousands. Dolokhov was one of the few that survived to make the journey home in the new year, a wilder and older version of the man he had been. Two years of war had left their indelible mark on him; he carried invisible scars too, entrenched deeply onto his heart.

*****

_“You...! you... scoundrel! I challenge you!” Pierre ejaculated, and, pushing back his chair, he rose from the table.  
-Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace_

**March 1807**

Despite the heavy losses and the clear French victory, the Emperor insisted on styling the Battle of Austerlitz as a success, pointing to it as an example of Russian fortitude. A formal dinner was arranged; inviting honourable gentlemen and officers alike, as a show of military and national strength. Next day, two hundred and fifty members of the English Club and fifty guests were awaiting the guest of honor and hero of the Austrian campaign, Prince Bagratión, to dinner.*

Enthusiasm for the Emperor had cooled amongst the officers and soldiers, but Dolokhov was bound by duty to attend. He also knew Pierre would have been invited, and something in Fedya was resolved to face his friend, to face, finally, the consequences of his actions. 

The club was packed to bursting; the length of the dining table full of men seated shoulder to shoulder. In a stroke of fate, Pierre had been seated across from Dolokhov, who, try as he might, couldn’t capture his old friend’s attention. 

Earlier, in the crowded and boisterous entryway, Dolokhov had strode forward, but Pierre had seen him coming and turned hastily away. The pattern had continued all evening, and Dolokhov knew that it could only mean one thing: over the past year, Pierre had come to know of Helene and Dolokhov’s affair.  
Relief and apprehension battled in Dolokhov all night long. He willed Pierre to confront him, longed for everything to be flayed open. But if Pierre met his gaze, as he did so now, across the linen and plates, it was only with a sad acceptance. 

“To the Emperor!” came the toast at the head of the table, and Dolokhov downed his wine, catching Pierre’s hot, mournful gaze across from him. His heart began to beat faster.

This is it, he thought. This is the moment.

But a choir was announced, along with copies of the music to be distributed, and the men sat down, Pierre’s eyes flickering sorrowfully back to his plate. 

_Enough._

“To the husbands of pretty women,” Dolokhov said, feeling wretched and reckless, his glass full again. Denisov, at his side, agreed encouragingly, but when Pierre didn’t react, Dolokhov kept going. 

_Look at me._

“To the health of beautiful women.” 

_Challenge me._

“To the health of beautiful women, Petrushka,” taunted Dolokhov ruthlessly. “And their lovers.”

Pierre looked at him like a lost soul. Something inside Dolokhov snapped, and he reached over and grabbed the music pamphlet roughly from Pierre’s hands. 

A split second, then Pierre scrambled forward, snatching the paper back angrily. 

“Don’t you _dare_ take what is mine!”

Dolokhov looked up, waiting.

“Really, Petrushka. What is the matter.” The words were half-hearted; he was mentally pushing Pierre over the edge, wishing for the final challenge to be issued, once and for all. 

“You - you scoundrel! I challenge you!” Pierre shouted, his normally peaceful face filled with rage and hurt, and the hall went still as shocked faces turned in their direction. 

“I challenge you,” Pierre said again, looking ill, but Dolokhov sat back in his chair, the hint of a satisfied smile playing at his lips, relief washing over him in waves. 

“I accept.”

*****

_The combatants advanced along the trodden tracks, nearer and nearer to one another, beginning to see one another through the mist. They had the right to fire when they liked as they approached the barrier. Dólokhov walked slowly without raising his pistol, looking intently with his bright, sparkling eyes into Pierre’s face.  
-Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace_

It was unusually misty the next morning, when Dolokhov and Rostov met with Pierre and Denisov, about eighty paces from the road. A few others had agreed to come, to make sure the rules of dueling were properly observed. The clearing in the pine trees was long and wide where the sleighs stopped. 

Rostov looked at Dolokhov as they clambered out into the chill. 

“Are you nervous?”

Dolokhov shook his head. This was the proper route at last. They would face each other, but he would not fire on his untrained and inexperienced friend. For his side, Pierre would surely miss, and they could put the whole rotten thing behind them, honour intact.

The two men paced farther away from each other, Pierre’s face gone as white as his surroundings. Dolokhov could hear Denisov’s worried, murmured instructions to Pierre, carried on the tendrils of mist curling around them. Dolokhov checked his pistol, then heard the instructions to advance, and he and Pierre marched towards each other.

The clearing was silent; Dolokhov only heard the steady drip of melting snow on the tree branches, the beat of his pulse sounding in his ears. He held his gun steadily forward, but he would not fire, and they kept moving, eyes locked on each other’s, and any minute now Pierre would give him his understanding smile and-

He heard the shot before he felt it; it fractured the stillness of the early morning, a group of alarmed starlings fluttered rapidly into the white sky above. 

Dolokhov kept walking; his soldier’s body trained to keep moving regardless of any kind of gunfire, his reflexes hardened against inaction. It was seconds before he found his breath shortening, and a deep, luscious pain, almost loving in its sweep, began pulsing near his ribs, stealing his oxygen. 

His brain couldn’t make sense of what was happening. Why was his left side crumpling? Why was he limping? Pierre’s silent figure swam in the mounds of snow, and Dolokhov’s vision blurred. He fell, dizzy, to his knees.  


Pierre ran forward, but some semblance of desperation caused Fedya’s injured pride to rise up, hot and anguished.

“To your barrier,” he gasped, like a wounded animal, and Pierre stopped, his features etched with misery. 

The pain was climbing, mounting, _roaring_ through him, and Fedya only wanted the horrible, blistering burning to cease. The wet snow lay all around him, fluffy and welcoming. He fell forward gratefully into it, the glacial cold a shocking balm against the hot, pulsing wound. He swallowed a mouthful of icy coolness, looking up into Pierre’s tormented face.

“Cover yourself!” cried Denisov to Pierre, who only spread his arms wide, waiting.

Dolokhov was barely aware of what he was doing; the scene was starting to go black at the edges. He sucked on the snow in his mouth, unable to find his centre of gravity, falling helplessly, slowly forward, and fired a wild shot uselessly above him.

It was over. It was over. 

He was aware of Pierre walking away, aware of movement. The next thing he knew, he was in a sleigh, and Rostov was leaning over him, concern in his eyes. 

The pain had dulled, now, and a blissful, heavy warmth had taken its place. He had heard that before death, soldiers felt-

Dolokhov’s green eyes fluttered open, focusing on Rostov’s.

“I don’t matter*,” he gasped, blood leaking from his mouth, drying on his lips in the wintry air. “But if she sees me dying it will kill her, she won’t survive-”

“Who?” asked Rostov, who was growing more and more rapidly concerned at the glassiness of his friend’s eyes, and pressed his hands more firmly against the front of Dolokhov’s blood-soaked coat.

“My mother - my angel of a mother - my mother, my poor sister” repeated Fedya, his teeth clenched with the effort of coherency. “The only ones I care for - there is no one - I must live for them-”

“Yes, I understand,” said Rostov, alarmed, and turned to the driver of the sleigh. 

“Move, man!” he ordered, and the sleigh jolted, the runners cutting through the snow, and Dolokhov closed his eyes gratefully, the spinning world finally going dark and silent at last.


	8. Recovery & the Rostovs

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fedya recovers with the help of his family and Nikolai, who also has an invitation for him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's a bit grim at the beginning, but not too graphic, I hope!

_Rostóv went on ahead to do what was asked, and to his great surprise learned that Dólokhov the brawler, Dólokhov the rogue, lived in Moscow with an old mother and a hunchback sister, and was the most affectionate of sons and brothers._

_-Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace_

They were lifting him from the sleigh, and he was jolted back to consciousness. He could hear Nikolai Rostov’s rapid, worried, voice speaking to someone; a flurry of replies, and then he was being carried into the house, he wanted to scream with the agony of movement, but there, waiting outside the door, the two faces he loved most dearly in the world-

“I-”

He meant to say more, but couldn’t, taking the one breath felt like drowning in his own blood. Then he was being laid onto the wooden table in the tiny front room, and his long coat was being ripped mercilessly open, his sodden waistcoat and shirt being lifted away from his skin with a sucking sound. 

The cold air that rushed onto his bare chest was welcome; it slapped awake his senses, and he sucked in a grateful, wheezing gasp. He turned his head on the wood and saw his sister Katya, bent over the fire, stoking the flames for heat and light, his mother helping. 

An unfamiliar voice spoke, and Dolokhov turned his head again, the effort causing the room to dip and spin, to see a face with kind grey eyes and a neat mustache. 

“This is Doctor Antanov,” came Rostov’s voice. “I sent for him and he prepared your family, as you requested, Fedya.”

The doctor had already bent his head, his fingers probing gently around the gunshot wound, and pain rocketed down Fedya’s body. He turned his head to the side again, and helplessly vomited bile and blood onto the table, his body jolting.

His mother hurried forward, but Dolokhov managed, through clenched teeth, 

“Go, I-”

“He is right,” said the doctor to Rostov. “Get them into the other room.” Dolokhov met his mother’s eyes as she and Katya left, Rostov returning and shutting the door.

“I will not take this out; it is too deep,” said the doctor, simply. “There is no bone fragment, it is a clean shot.” He looked up again and met Dolokhov’s eyes.

“You must simply survive it. Time will tell.”

Then he addressed Rostov. 

“However, there is wadding in here that I must remove, and I must stop the bleeding if he is to have any chance; you will have to help hold him down.” 

“Now,” said the doctor, nodding at Dolokhov, who lay his head back down against the table, heart pumping at the knowledge of more torment to come. 

“Brace yourself,” said Doctor Anatov, and Dolokhov took a desperate, painful breath. 

*****

Dolokhov was not conscious for long periods of time. The days passed: hours were spent in fitful, feverish tossing, a state that was not quite sleep. The blackness came and went, as did the biting, relentless pain in his side. 

He would shift towards voices and light only to experience a horrendous pulling sensation, an instinctual warning to stay still, and would freeze, waiting for the red screaming in his senses, rooted at his side, to abate. 

Gradually, pieces of awareness filtered through. Nikolai’s young, distressed face. Dolokhov’s mother’s careworn expression, her hand soothing as she stroked sweaty hair from his brow. His sister’s shuffling walk, the familiar corners of the room he was in.

He awoke one evening, the pain immediately flaring to life, but everything around him was sharper; he was lucid for the first time in weeks. 

“Rostov.” His voice was pure rust, but it didn’t matter, the young man started fitfully awake and was at his side. 

“Fedya!” He hovered close. “How do you feel?”

“Like death.” Dolokhov looked down at his chest; he was stripped to the waist, a stained linen bandage wrapped tightly around him. He was lying on a pallet on the floor near the fire. 

“Good God, Dolokhov, we thought you were done for. The doctor told us to send for the priest, you received Last Rites-”

“My mother.” Dolokhov gripped Nicholas’ arm, lifting his head. 

“She’s fine. She’s sleeping. Once it was clear you were going to live, I finally convinced her to get some rest.” 

Dolokhov nodded and dropped his head back. He cleared his throat, a faint blush of shame appeared on his cheeks as he looked at the ceiling. 

“There is money in my-”

“Your sister Katya had guessed as much, the rent is paid.” Nicholas’ direct tone allowed for Dolokhov to give him a grateful nod. 

“Thank you, Rostov.”

“Speak nothing of it, my friend.” 

A gentle knock sounded at the door, and at Dolokhov’s “Enter,” Katya’s face peeked in.

“Fedya!” her expression was joyful. “You are awake!”

He lifted his hand out to her, smiling, and she came forward and clasped it. Pain lanced sharply through his side, but he could tolerate it, and the relief on Katya’s face was worth it. 

“We were so worried! Let me get mother, she will-”

“No, let her sleep.”

Katya knelt down beside him. 

“Are you hungry? I will get something-”

“God, no,” groaned Fedya, and Rostov laughed. “Some water, then?” and when Fedya nodded, Nikolai rose to get it. Katya looked at him steadily. 

“Your friend has been very loyal, Fedya, and given us no details beyond the duel itself, but everyone is saying that Count Bezukhov challenged you because-” 

She stopped, a blush creeping onto her face. Green eyes, so like his own, pierced his, and she went determinedly on. 

“Because you-they are saying you and the Countess Helene-”

Dolokhov glanced at Rostov, suddenly mightily absorbed in pouring water, and then glanced back to his sister.  
“Pierre was right to challenge me,” he said clearly. 

Kaya’s hand flew to her mouth. 

“Fyodor!” she gasped, her eyes widening. 

“A married woman!” she said, then shook her head. “Your _friend!_ ”

Katya’s innocent shock was worse than his wound.

“You are too wild, Fedya. You have always been impulsive, but this!”

She watched him wince and struggle to hold his neck up in order to take a sip of water, as Rostov supported his shoulders. Kayta sighed, relenting. 

“You need to be married.”

“Ha! That is the last thing I need.”

“I am serious! A good woman would care for you, tame you a bit, I think.”

“I pity the woman already,” Fedya mumbled into his water, grinning, and Rostov snorted. 

“Come on Fedya, she’s right, you know. You are a wild devil, and marriage is a good thing.”

“Is it?” asked Dolokhov, thinking of Pierre and Helene’s unhappy home. He lay back down, exhausted. 

There was shuffling in the other room. “That is mother, I will go to her,” said Katya, rising to her feet. 

“Listen, Fedya.” Nikolai leaned closer, his friendly face earnest. “What do you say to coming to stay with my family? They are good people, and I know you would be most welcome. Denisov would come along as well…”

Nicholai’s cheerful tone faded as Dolokhov faded back into sleep, the exertion of the conversation overwhelming him.

It was another few days before he could stay alert longer than an hour or so, yet another week before he had the strength to sit up and accept a bowl of broth from his mother’s shaking hands. Soon enough, Rostov left with a promise to return for him in a week, and Dolokhov spent the interim hours slowly rising from his bed, pacing to the wall, then back again, sinking to his mattress in a cold sweat. 

He began to feel closer to his old self; the first time he bathed, he almost wept from the relief of it. Soon, his old restlessness began rising to the surface. His body ached, the wound itched. He chafed at his own inability to be outdoors, to walk briskly in the air that he tasted through the window. He longed to ride, cantering in the sweet, fresh, spring outside. 

He wanted to be gambling, he wanted to be dancing, he wanted to be at parties. He wanted the burn of vodka down his throat, he wanted the rapture of being inside a woman, watching her submit to the pleasure he provided. He wanted laughter and risk and people. 

He wanted life. 

When Nicholai Rostov came back, Dolokhov was more than ready. He kissed his mother and sister goodbye, already thinking forward, already counting down towards the return to his old habits. 

*****

_Among the young men introduced by Rostóv one of the first was Dólokhov, whom everyone in the house liked except Natásha._

_-Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace_

The Rostovs, it was clear, were a warm, loving family. They welcomed Dolokhov and Denisov easily and effortlessly. The afternoon Rostov brought them home, introductions were made in a confusing jumble, Rostov and his parents speaking happily over each other, the entrance hall a knot of laughing, jovial people. 

Rostov introduced his sister Natasha, a lively girl on the cusp of womanhood, who gave Fedya a narrow-eyed sweep of her gaze and an aloof greeting. 

Rostov’s brother, still a little boy, gave Fedya an opposite look, full of admiration and awe for the man dressed in regimentals in front of him. Dolokhov grinned at him, giving him a salute, and the boy gasped in delight, clumsily saluting back. 

“And this is my dear-”

Nicholai stopped, stumbling over his words, then recovered. 

“This is my cousin Sonya,” he finished, and Dolokhov looked into the solemn, pretty face of a young woman a few years older than Natasha. 

She met his eyes, then looked down at her feet again, blushing, as Dolokhov bowed over her hand. 

She mumbled something, and Dolokhov leaned closer.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t quite hear you,” he said, smiling at her. 

She raised her eyes to his again. 

“I was inquiring if you are feeling better, Officer Dolokhov. I hope you are not in too much pain.”

“Thank you, I am quite well,” he said, her quiet sincerity surprising him. Then the Count and Countess Rostov were calling for everyone to come into the front room, and the servants were bustling around, taking trunks to different rooms, and Denisov had clapped him on the back, saying he needed a drink. 

Dolokhov watched Sonya as she left arm in arm with Natasha, letting the concern in her blue eyes wash pleasantly over him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sheesh! Our boy has had QUITE the past two years. The next chapter is a bit lighter, and we get to see Fedya at a ball, being dashing and having fun, for a bit of a change. 😄


	9. Denial & Dancing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dolokhov once again misapplies good intentions, although it's in a different way, and we get to see him in one his best versions; dancing!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a lighter chapter, for a change!

_“You must understand what a soul there is in Dólokhov, you should see him with his mother. What a heart!”_

_“Well, I don’t know about that, but I am uncomfortable with him. And do you know he has fallen in love with Sónya?”_

_[...] Natásha’s prediction proved true. [...] And Sónya, though she would never have dared to say so, knew it and blushed scarlet every time Dólokhov appeared.  
-Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace_

**Summer 1807**

The first week at the Rostovs, time lay heavy on Fedya’s hands, and it was a strange and new experience. The Rostovs kept a close eye on him, which was both affectionate and claustrophobic, and, unable to sneak away on a horse into the city, he found himself entirely at the mercy of wholesome entertainment. 

He was frustrated at how easily he became tired, exasperated at how the smallest of tasks exhausted him. Denisov and Rostov often went and met with the regiment for training, returning sweaty and happily worn out, and Dolokhov tried not to let his own burning envy discourage him. 

He sat at every family meal, he played chess and cards with young Petya, and ventured outside for daily walks, whether the sun shone or the rain poured down; he could not bear being inside for too long a time. 

It was on one of these walks, a fine, July morning, that he noticed how brisk his stride had grown; he was more than mildly warm, and though it was early, he had built up a nice sweat. He risked a deep lungful of air. His rib cage expanded with an echo of the old pain, but the rush of oxygen was satisfying. 

He loosened his cravat, ripping the silk knot apart and out of his collar. He unbuttoned his jacket and waistcoat, gathering them together, and hung them on a branch of a nearby tree. He rolled up his shirtsleeves, shook back his hair, and burst into a run. 

A hare, startled by Fedya’s burst of movement, darted across his path as he pounded his boots delightedly along the dirt. The dusty, dry earth rose in puffs at his feet as he kept going, his breath sawing raggedly from his chest, the grin on his face wide.

He was already tiring and having to slow, when he saw a slender, graceful figure ahead. Sonya. They stopped a few feet from each other. Her mouth opened in silent astonishment, and her eyes traveled down his disheveled, half-dressed figure. 

He smiled at her and bowed low. 

“Sonya.”

“I - I see you are enjoying the morning, Officer Dolokhov.”

He raked his hair back from his face and nodded. “I apologize for my state - I am a bit desperate for exercise.”

“I’m not surprised - I have often thought how hard it must be for you, unable to join Nikolai and Denisov.” She said this with a shy smile, and Dolokhov was touched, again, by the soft concern in her expression. 

“I’ll join them yet,” he grinned, but this seemed to be a bit too bold of a statement for her, and her brows drew together.

“No, no, you must not rush yourself,” she answered, looking worried. 

Sonya seemed not to know where to look; she glanced at the bit of bare chest showing at his open collar, and she blushed again, looking down at her feet. Dolokhov bent low to meet her gaze, and gave her a smile.

“I shall escort you the rest of the way. I’ll get my things, and make myself a proper gentleman again.”

It was not lost on him, the irony of his words. Perhaps not on her either, because she merely looked at him, unsure. 

“No, thank you,” she whispered, and with a parting curtsy, walked quickly in the other direction, towards the house. 

He could hardly blame her. He shrugged to the empty, sunlit woods, and began striding back to his own things, vaguely aware that Sonya was kindling a need in him, entirely different from what he was used to. 

*****

The weeks passed. Dolokhov went for a careful ride, murmuring slow words in his horse’s ear, then urging a faster pace, then they were galloping across the fields, Fedya's gleeful whooping echoing behind him, into the late afternoon air. When Denisov invited him to join them at the barracks one day, Dolokhov agreed, and found himself able to not only lift a sword without pain, but to wield it, as well. 

He visited his mother and sister, giving them the last of his money, and filled them in with stories of the Rostovs, delighting them both with society gossip and tales of the boys in training. When he left, he leaned in to kiss his mother’s cheek, and she reached up a hand to stroke his hair back, looking him in the eye. 

“The Rostovs are good people.”

“I know, mother.” 

He made to kiss her again, but she gripped his chin fondly in her hand.

“One of those girls you spoke of would make a good wife, Fedya. You need a happy home like that, to come back to.”

He sighed. This was not the first time this particular topic of conversation had occurred, and since his duel with Pierre, it cropped up more often.

“I am not a man who is-”

“Fyodor Ivanovich.”

She smiled fondly, with the touch of exasperation she saved solely for him. 

“You cannot survive on sheer momentum and force of will, my dear. You need love and stability, as well.”

“I have that already, in you and Katya.”

She shook her head.

“Promise me you will think on this, Fedya. Before you return to the front lines. Just reflect a little on the matter. For me. Hmmm?”

He chuckled, but nodded. “For you. I will think on it, yes. I promise.”

She looked at him a few moments more, then, satisfied, turned her cheek, finally allowing a kiss. As he rode back to the Rostovs that night, the temperature dropping, the hint of autumn in the air, he kept his promise to his mother, his thoughts turning to Sonya’s quiet presence and sweet blue eyes.

*****

**Winter 1807**

As the months turned cold, Moscow was visited by frost; overnight, the window panes were spidered with silver, the tree branches sparkling and glittering. Cobblestones became slippery, and society’s young people gathered indoors, attending Igol’s Dancing Hall, learning the various dances and steps. 

That night, at dinner, Count Rostov raised his glass to his family and guests. 

“To the health and happiness of all, and to the splendid recovery of our young friend, here.”

Dolokhov looked at the smiling faces around the table. 

“I can’t thank you enough, Count Rostov, and you Countess, for your kindness to me.”

Everyone began to eat, and the Count shook his head, waving off Fedya’s thanks. 

“Nonsense, it’s our pleasure.” He looked up from his plate. “You’re one of the heroes of Austerlitz.”

Dolokhov loved praise, but he couldn’t make sense of it whenever he tried to apply it to his bleak, war-ravaged memories, so he merely bowed his head, saying carefully, 

“It’s nothing to be proud of, sire, I’m just a man who loves to fight. It’s all I know - to my shame.”

“Don’t disparage yourself, Fedya, none of us will believe it, anyway,” put in Rostov, smiling at him.

“Then I had better say nothing about myself at all,” teased Fedya, happening to look at Natasha, who hadn’t yet warmed up to him, and looked away.

“How is your Mazurka coming along, Natasha?” asked the Countess, and the conversation fell to dancing. Dolokhov took the opportunity to turn to Sonya, seated beside him, and, instinctively knowing to tread softly, asked, 

“Have you always lived with the family, Sonya?”

“Yes, since I was a little girl.”

She barely looked up, nodding at her food. 

So he would have to work harder to engage her in conversation; he gave her a faint, encouraging smile. 

“Nikolai speaks so warmly of you. Now I can see why.” She didn’t react, but he knew she was listening, and, spurred on by his own certainty Sonya was the type of woman he should be pursuing, decided to make his intentions clear. 

He looked at her intently. 

“I should like to know you better, Sonya.” 

He didn’t realize how deeply he wanted a reply until he didn’t get one; she merely offered an uncomfortable smile and barely met his eyes. 

Dolokhov leaned back, thinking. He was used to women fawning over him, was used to charming them, whether by playful flirtation or careful seduction; he had seduced his way into more than his fair share of bedrooms, after all. He had met with women who challenged him, and he thought of Helene with the usual accompanying stab of heartache, but he had not yet met with such innocent shyness as Sonya’s. 

So be it; he was up to the challenge.

*****

_Iogel’s were the most enjoyable balls in Moscow. So said the mothers as they watched their young people executing their newly learned steps, and so said the youths and maidens themselves as they danced till they were ready to drop, and so said the grown-up young men and women who came to these balls with an air of condescension and found them most enjoyable.  
-Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace_

The Christmas season arrived, and with it, parties and balls. Dolokhov would not admit to himself how hard he found it, to miss out on the level of drink and merriment he would normally indulge in. He positively ached to laugh and flirt, and missed the pleasures of women to the point where he thought he might go mad. His fingers often tapped restlessly at his side; there was no fighting at the Rostovs, and certainly no gambling. He ignored the fact that he was completely out of money, and did his best to bury the feeling that he was not quite being honest when he told himself that he was happiest this way.

Instead, he sternly reminded himself of the conversation with his mother, and tried to be the type of man Sonya would say yes to. 

On the first day of Christmas, Iogor was holding his traditional, legendary ball. In his rooms, Dolokhov looked himself over in the mirror, satisfied with the result. He knew he looked older; the war had given him some lines at his eyes when he smiled at his reflection. He once again filled out his officer’s jacket, having recovered most of the weight and muscle he had lost since his recovery. He had been to get his hair and mustache trimmed; his dark curls were parted neatly. He licked his lips, running his tongue over the scar there, and indulged in a brief, heated imagining of a woman running _her_ tongue across the same spot. 

Would Sonya ever…? The image faded; he couldn’t picture her doing anything besides smiling shyly at him. Nonsense. She just needed to open up to him.

He tugged at his jacket, lifted his eyebrow at himself, and grinned. 

She would open up to him, indeed.

*****

The ballroom was crowded; it was the busiest Dolokhov had ever attended. 

He sat at Sonya’s side, they occupied two of the many chairs set out at the edge of the dance floor. The atmosphere was merry, the musicians kept their selections lively. They had already played through four pieces, and Dolokhov tapped the toe of his boot, keeping time. 

He took a deep breath and stood, then bowed before Sonya with his boots formally together, holding out his hand.

“Would you do me the honour of dancing with me, Sonya?” 

She shook her head, embarrassment clear. “Oh, no, I’d be so afraid of everyone looking at me if I were to miss a step.” She widened her eyes in sincere encouragement. 

“But I wouldn’t want you to miss out on the dancing! Please, ask one of the ladies here; I’d so like to watch you.”

Dolokhov sat back in his chair, resigned, but wanting to put her at ease. 

“I have all the entertainment I am in need of, here with you.” 

She ducked her head, blushing again, and Dolokhov drank careful sips of his wine, wishing he could throw it back. Despite his resolve to not drink as much, he had already lost count after four glasses. The evening was beginning to grow warm and blurred at the edges.

“It’s beautiful to watch,” Sonya ventured, and Dolokhov nodded his agreement, although he would have far preferred to be participating. Sonya turned to Natasha, and they giggled and whispered together. His attention roved from couple to couple, slightly bored, until a lady caught his eye.

She was beautiful, and moved with grace. Even from this distance he could see she was young, probably Sonya’s age, although there was something in the way she moved across the floor that spoke of maturity, and experience. Unlike the other women, she wore no jeweled ornaments or tiara in her shining dark hair; just a sprig of holly.

She drew the eye; he could sense both gentlemen’s and ladies’ heads turning in her direction. On Sonya’s other side, Natasha leaned forward.

“Mama tells me that is Count Palecekev’s new bride. Not Russian, but apparently the Count was entranced by her beauty. A supremely advantageous match for her, she played that well.”

There was slight disapproval in Natasha’s tone, but Dolokhov held no judgement for those who had to do what they could for money. He continued to watch the young lady as she glided along, she was a pleasure to watch; controlled elegance all the way through. 

She was making up for the man she was dancing with, who had an unfortunate but definite lumbering quality to his step. They turned, and Dolokhov caught a glimpse of the young lady’s expression, she was facing briefly away from her partner, and her coolness betrayed, just for a moment, clear and obvious frustration. 

Dolokhov smiled to himself; so all that careful control hid a lively exterior.

He took his opportunity right as they twirled past; the lady was looking over her partner’s shoulder, facing Dolokhov, who leaned back, licked his lips and gave her a lazy, hooded grin. He expected an appropriately maidenly blush in return. Instead, she looked fearlessly back, arching an unimpressed dark eyebrow. Then, she dismissed him with a graceful turn of her head, and was lost in the dance again. 

The clear boldness of her expression! Dolokhov couldn’t stop himself from craning his neck slightly, seeking out her dark hair, but it was in vain. 

He felt Sonya’s hand on his arm, and looked guiltily down at her. Sonya. Beautiful, sweet, Sonya. He was surprised she had touched him, and the gesture caused him to smile down at her.

“Happy?” he asked.

“I’m rather warm, actually. I do wonder if it would be better to join one of the groups in the front rooms.”

“Of course.” Dolokhov stood, bowing in front of her and offering his arm. Sonya rose and took it, and they began to walk along the edge of the dance floor towards the doors leading out. He could feel Natasha watching them. 

*****

In the end, with some careful, attentive conversation, he was able to convince Sonya to join him on the ballroom floor. It was one of the last dances of the evening, and it was the new and slightly scandalous French Galop; it required a much faster time, a closer embrace, multiple partner switches, and a lively step.

Dolokhov loved it.

He and Sonya waited in position, and he returned her shy glance up at him with a reassuring smile. 

The first notes sparkled out into the crowd, and the dance began. Sonya was clutching at him more than dancing with him, and he wished she would trust him and let go of her stiff nervousness; it was slowing them both down. 

He pushed the uncharitable thought aside, and spoke to her as he moved them through the intricate steps; the first movement of the dance was picking up speed.

“Quite a romp, isn’t it?” he laughed, but Sonya only nodded, a bit wild-eyed. Her hand was clenched tightly onto the lapel of his uniform. 

“It made waves in Paris; they say it’s almost indecent, because it is necessary to be so close to your partner,” he continued, illustrating his point by holding her a bit closer to him and winking playfully down at her. 

“It’s rather fast,” was Sonya’s illuminating reply, her delicate frame determinedly stiff and unyielding in his arms. 

The partner change was coming up, and Dolokhov tried to ignore how relieved he was at the realization. Although, he thought, turning around and releasing Sonya a bit too gratefully, out of the hundreds of women, that was the fun of the dance, the risk that you could end up with anyone-

He turned back again, and it was the young lady from before, the holly cheerful and bright above her ear, a stark contrast to the sparkling jewelry all around them. She stepped into his arms in perfect rhythm, her cool hand resting gently in his warm one, his fingers settling lightly at her waist. They began to move, her feet skipping effortlessly along with his, and with each step, he felt her release more and more control to him, realizing and trusting his lead.

Their gazes met; she was indeed very beautiful, her expression properly reserved, but those hazel eyes were pure spirit. They turned together, executing the tricky footwork easily, and he instinctively took a chance, spinning her out, then catching her waist deftly again. He felt her quick intake of breath as her rib cage expanded just above his fingertips, and he pulled her closer against him. She allowed it, her thighs against his as they moved as one, and they held each other's gaze as the rhythm picked up further; there was a hint of challenge in her expression as if daring him to go faster, while following his lead completely.

Then the dance switched again; Dolokhov had hardly noticed it was time for another change, and was paired with a jolly, elderly woman who kept him grinning with her cheeky comments, and on his toes to keep up with her. 

Sonya rotated back into his arms, looking positively miserable, and Dolokhov felt a stab of guilt; she clearly wasn’t enjoying herself. He attempted some cheerful conversation, but she only looked up at him, slightly terrified. 

Another switch, and he knew who was coming up next; he saw her in his peripheral vision, and this time, she was even turning slightly towards him, anticipation clear. Now they knew they were well-matched, and he led her through the patterns confidently, their bodies flush. He improvised time and time again, twirling her out, and she was with him every step of the way. He took a risk, lifting her by the waist and spinning them both, rotating sides, and she caught what he was doing smoothly, her feet a perfect mirror of his as he brought her back down. She looked at him once more, and though her face was still schooled elegance, he caught the delight shining in her eyes. Lust slammed into him, hard, and he realized how long it had been since he had felt-

Then the change came again, and he was back with the flirtatious and merry woman. 

Finally, the music slowed, and Sonya spun back to him, and the dance was over, the out-of-breath dancers applauding.

“I’m glad to have tried it, but I don’t think it’s quite for me,” Sonya said breathlessly, as she took his arm and they headed from the floor. 

The party continued late into the night, but Dolokhov did not dance again. Natasha refused him, twice, and he knew that his experiment with Sonya had failed. He sat, downing glass after glass of wine, his resolution abandoned, as Sonya whispered with Natasha.

The drink was catching up to him, and the night had definitely taken on a rosy glow. He looked down at Sonya fondly. It didn’t matter if she wasn’t much for dancing, he thought, in a surge of good-willed affection. She was sweet and unchallenging.

It was hours later, in an alcohol-induced haze in his bed, that he thought again of the hazel-eyed young Countess, and realized they hadn’t spoken a single word to each other. Then, he closed his eyes, sleep claiming him, and by morning, had forgotten most of the night’s details entirely.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. Did you recognize our hazel-eyed young lady? I could NOT help myself, I'm so sorry! :D I wanted to be reaaaalllly careful; I didn’t want them to speak or actually “meet,” and I wanted it to be a situation they wouldn’t remember due to years passing (and in Dolokhov’s case, the addition of wine) but also for their interaction to make an impression, however brief. (And I wanted to pay an early tribute to that electric physicality they had; clear from the start.) Plus, he’s still very much a flirt and womanizer (even though he’s denying a lot about himself right now) so it’s not like he’ll drop everything and pursue a random dance partner. Still, I wanted their paths to cross as a treat to myself (and hopefully to you!) while keeping the integrity of the story. Her appearance also serves, imho, as another character foil to Sonya, showing why she really isn’t a good match for Dolokhov, at all. 
> 
> 2\. The French Galop was indeed considered scandalous. Just like the waltz was! It was super fast, with 2/4 time, which is half-time! In order to keep up, you'd have to trust your partner, and also stay close. ;)  
> (I have taken a liberty with history, though - it wasn't introduced until the 1830s. Whatever, I wanted Fedya and his mysterious partner to dance it!)
> 
> 3\. The dinner scene is entirely from the BBC version, which I re-watched a few times to get an idea of how he approached Sonya. (With deliciously soft Tom eyes, apparently. 😁)


	10. Rejection & Relapse

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Uh-oh.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: some naughty behaviour ahead.

_“I told you, but you would not believe it,” Natasha said triumphantly. “Dolokhov has proposed to Sónya!”_  
“And fancy! she refused him quite definitely!” adding, after a pause, “she told him she loved another.”  
-Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace 

He must offer Sonya his hand in marriage. He had been singling her out, had given her his sole and obvious attention; societal expectation was that he must now follow through. The Count and Countess Rostov had given their approval. He had visited his mother and sister, telling them his news, and their joyous reaction had counterbalanced his own hesitation.

His furlough was about to end; he would be leaving to fight in a few days’ time, and he was determined to do it as an engaged man. 

It was not love; he knew that. But love, in all its mystery, was a luxury he could not afford. And he held genuine affection for her sweet nature. The thought of having Sonya caring about him, keeping him in her thoughts as he faced down death, touched a part of Dolokhov’s heart that he had not believed existed.

Dolokhov pictured their future together, as he often had, over the last few weeks, and the thought of a sterile, silent home with Sonya, and the careful, uneventful life lived within it, was not exactly encouraging. It inspired only a vague sense of duty. 

He straightened the black silk at his throat, and pushed all hesitancy aside. Sonya was kind, and if she did not entirely trust him, well, he would earn it. He would not ask her to change, but he could damn well master his own nature. He would endeavour to deserve her, and eventually, she would make him happy, he was certain. 

He straightened his shoulders and left his room, ignoring the strong feeling that he was making a grave mistake. 

*****

The Rostovs had arranged for Dolokhov to be alone with Sonya in the sitting room; when he arrived, Sonya was seated prettily on a chair, a new wrap arranged becomingly around her shoulders. The Countess beamed at Dolokhov, patting his shoulder, and left the room, closing the doors behind her. 

Sonya looked up at him with a slightly fearful expression, and he strode forward, dropping to his knees in front of her, taking her hand carefully in his. 

“Sonya.”

She bent her head, she wouldn’t meet his eyes, and Fedya wished he could look into them.

“Sonya, you must know why I have requested this audience with you. You must know of my feelings, my intent.”

She didn’t lift her face, there was only the shake of her head. This wasn’t unusual for her shy nature, he knew, but some instinct told him something was not right. Doggedly, he continued. 

“Sonya, will do me the honour of giving me your hand in marriage, and becoming my wife?”

There. His heart was galloping in his chest, but he had done it. 

Sonya would be his wife. 

Blind panic shot through him at the thought, but he mastered it, and squeezed her hand gently. Sonya looked up, and shook her head again. 

“Officer Dolokhov,” she began softly, and he suddenly realized that she had never called him by his name.

“I am flattered by your proposal,” she whispered, and though he heard the words he couldn’t process what was happening.

“But I love another.”

“You love - another,” he repeated. He hadn’t imagined any scenario where Sonya refused him, even less, one where she confessed her love of some other man. 

He knelt in front of her, dumbfounded, and heard a distant burst of laughter from a floor above them. It was absurd that anyone in the world could be laughing at this moment. He released her hand.

“Even if I didn’t love another, I - I could never marry you,” Sonya said, with more spirit in her tone than he had ever heard.

That was enough; he certainly didn’t need any more explanation, but apparently Sonya was determined to make his humiliation absolute, and she opened her mouth to speak, then shut it again. 

“They say - they say you are a bad man,” she said, to the floor. 

Dolokhov sat back on his heels, a little shocked. 

“And-” he cleared his throat, willing his voice to sound stronger. “And do you believe that I am? A bad man?”

At this, Sonya raised her eyes to his, and he saw pity. 

“Yes,” she whispered.

He got to his feet. 

“I see.”

“Dolokhov-” Sonya held out a hand, and he waited. Anger and humiliation blazed from his gut to his throat and settled there, making his eyes burn. 

“I hope we can still be comfortable all together,” she said, her lip quivering, and he couldn’t stand to be there in front of her a moment longer. He turned and left the room.

He stomped upstairs to his chambers and began throwing clothes and his things haphazardly into his trunk. He tore off his formal clothes, stepping instead into his officer’s shirt and trousers. The only identity that fit.

He heard tentative footsteps approach his door, and opened it to see the Countess Rostov standing there, the compassion on her face somehow worse than Sonya’s pity. 

“Fedya, I am shocked to hear that Sonya refused you, I-”

Hearing it out loud was a horrible confirmation. How had he misplayed this so badly? How had he not seen?

“You are a good match for her, let the Count and I speak to her again,” pleaded the Countess, as Dolokhov paced angrily to a chair and grabbed his officer’s coat, throwing it on and leaving it undone. He walked to the Countess and bowed shortly in front of her.

“I am leaving. I thank you again, for your hospitality. I will send for my things in a day or two.”

“Oh, Fedya, we are all so fond of you, please reconsider-”

“Good evening, Countess Rostov.” He bowed again, and she stood aside, sighing, letting him past.

He pounded down the stairs, mortification driving him forward, out, away: anywhere but here. 

_A bad man._

There had never been so many stairs! He reached the landing, then prowled through the front sitting room and into the parlour, where Nikolai had just come in, dressed in uniform and adjusting his cuffs.

“Ah, Dolokhov! You’ll never guess who I just ran into.”

Dolokhov stalked right past him; he couldn’t bear to speak to Rostov, couldn’t bear to be in this house. 

He stormed out a side door and towards the stables, and one of the grooms approached. 

“I”ll have Ada saddled for you in a moment, sir,” he began, but Dolokhov interrupted him. 

“Nevermind that, I don’t need all that damn fuss,” he said shortly, and the groom stood back hastily. Dolokhov threw open the stable door and pulled a wooden stool over, mounting Ada and clicking his tongue near her ears. 

They shot straight from the stall and tore into the cold grey twilight, heading towards Fedya’s favourite gambling den and the sure promise of oblivion.

*****

“Fyodor Dolokhov!” The roar of his name as he entered was like match to flint; he took a full bottle of vodka that somebody was holding out to him and put it to his lips, pouring it down his throat until most of it was gone. 

“Another!” he shouted, raising his arms, and he saw the familiar faces of a few old friends, as well as the ones from his regiment, and grinned. 

“Did you miss me, gentlemen?” he laughed, and received another cheer. 

He ambled towards the table where his friends were gathered, the candles dripping wax, cards splayed across the surface, coins gleaming promisingly in the low light. 

Adrik stood, gesturing to the empty seat. 

“Where the devil have you been, Fedya? We heard you were staying at the Rostovs-”

“Dancing at balls, sipping teas,” teased Timokhin.

“After that duel with Bezukhov? How did you manage such society after that whole affair?”

“Luck,” shrugged Fedya with a careless grin, but he had already observed the last few changes in hands, his sharp mind already calculating the odds of the game currently in progress. 

“I’m in; 300 on the next round,” he said, nodding at the table. 

“Of course, Fedya,” said Adrik, but another officer Dolokhov didn’t know leaned forward, shaking his head. 

“Money down, first.”

Dolokhov looked at him. 

“I’m good for it, these fellows know me.”

The man stared back. 

“I don’t. Neither do I see any money.”

Fedya was clean out; he had not a single coin to his name. No matter, he was correcting that immediately.

“I will say it again, if you doubt me a second time you insult my honour; I stand behind my bet.” 

Timokhin, beside him, handed him a glass of wine, and Dolokhov drank it down, smiling. 

“If you don’t lose to me, that is.”

The men laughed, and Dolokhov felt an ember of his old confidence flicker to life. The other man sensed the tide turning against him, and nodded.

The game continued, and Dolokhov was watching carefully, but the other man was too fast, and after his fifth drink, his head pleasantly fuzzy, Fedya lost track of his own math.

As the last card was flipped, the other man looked up, triumph fading at the apologetic look on Fedya’s face. 

“I thought you were good for the money.”

“I am. I will get it. I-”

He knew what was happening, and he welcomed it; the other man stood and leaned over, punching Dolokhov hard. Pain, raw and sharp and real, burst behind his right eye, spreading hotly onto his cheekbone. He blinked, grinning at the man, who only looked at him, disgusted, and spat at his feet before turning and leaving the room. 

Dolokhov laughed.

“Feyda, he caught you right in the eye,” stammered Timokhin. “It’s swelling already.”

“Good,” growled Fedya, who had already staggered to his feet. “I think,” he said, watching a trio of women who had just entered the room, “I am in need of further distraction.”

*****

Half an hour later, Raisa was sitting on his lap, cooing concern over his swollen eye, giggling at every joke, and petting his hair.

“Are you feeling lucky tonight, officer?” she whispered, and Dolokhov had a flash of Sonya’s embarrassed, sympathetic face. He blinked, shaking off the memory, and gave Raisa a lazy smile. 

“Always,” he murmured, and putting his other hand on her waist, shifted her so she was facing him entirely, her legs on either side of him. The room was spinning, and he was desperate to chase away the painful humiliation of the afternoon. 

He rotated his hips, looking up into Raisa’s eyes, lining himself up against her with a quick, purposeful rub, then dropped them again, watching the shock and pleasure flare in her face. 

“Oh!” she gasped, and her hands rested on his shoulders. Then she smiled at him, and he knew the game was won.

“Goodness, Officer,” she purred, her smile sly, her hand reaching between them and smoothing along his length. 

He groaned, loudly, he couldn’t help it; he hadn’t been with a woman in half a year, determined to change for Sonya. 

Sonya. 

Helene. 

Pierre. 

The drunken nights. The gambling debt.

His life was nothing but a collection of mistakes and poor decisions, interrupted by long months of war. He was good for nothing but scraping and gambling his way forward, fighting to keep his head above water.

“What are you thinking about?” Raisa asked.

“That I am a bad man,” he said, bitterly.

She giggled. 

“I hope so.” She stroked him again, and he threw his head back, abandoning himself completely to her touch, raising his hips shamelessly, and she giggled coquettishly, leaning forward and kissing his jaw.

He brought his head back up and kissed her. She opened her mouth to him, and his tongue was stroking hungrily against hers, his hand traveling to her back to steady her as he lifted his hips in rhythm, matching the rough movement of her hand along his length. 

She was moaning softly into his mouth, and when they drew apart, they were both breathless. “We are not in one of the upstairs rooms,” she said, but her hand was moving faster, and when he reached his other hand up to drift across her left breast, his thumb lightly skimming her hardened nipple, she gasped again.

His hand at her back guided her closer, and he reached up, pulling her the flimsy fabric of her dress down off her shoulder. She leaned eagerly into him as his tongue flicked her nipple, then he captured a warm mouthful of soft breast. His other hand came up and gently squeezed, and he ignored the flicker of regret at the loss of feeling in two of his fingertips. She moaned, louder, and ground herself harder against him. 

The laughter of the other men and women at cards sounded distant. Fedya drew back slightly and looked deep into her eyes, letting her know she was his sole, singular focus. 

“We don’t need to be in one of those rooms,” he said, his voice low, and with his free hand, danced his fingers suggestively along the hem of her skirt, bunched and pooling at her knees. He shifted her slightly, turning her even more towards him and the shelter of the corner’s shadows. Her eyes were dark with desire, and she smiled, reaching for his belt.

“That’s true.”

He lay back as she undid his belt, lust building painfully as she reached into his trousers and gripped him.

“Hmm,” she whispered, leaning forward and sucking on his earlobe. “I suppose those particular rumours are deflightfully true,” she said, her hand moving up and down, up and down, and he grunted, lost in sensation for a moment, unable to articulate a response. Pleasure simmered in his veins and pushed against his skin. Then he spanned his hands on either side of her waist, lifting her gently, and she reached for her dress and gathered fabric in her fist, settling herself onto him as he arched himself into her. 

They both let out a breath, then he bit his lip, his eyes on her as he began to thrust his hips up and move them both, joined together, his hands steady on her waist. 

Dolokhov shifted forward, bracing his feet on the floor and driving them both faster. She was gasping, moving eagerly with him now, and long-forgotten ecstasy was throbbing through him, exquisite and demanding; it was an effort not to topple them both to the floor, trap her beneath him and slam himself into her until she screamed his name to the ceiling. 

He coaxed her to lean down towards his face, capturing her mouth with his, and moved a hand between them, his thumb giving her a gentle, teasing rub. She uttered an exclamation of surprise that was silenced by his tongue on hers, and he felt her hands clench tightly at his collar. 

She broke the kiss, and his thumb stroked a gentle, persistent pattern, keeping rhythm with his hips. She began to let out little half-sobbing noises helplessly into his neck.

“Oh, I, oh, oh, what is, I-”

He kept going, the pressure of his own release threatening, and ordered a gravelly command into her ear. 

“Let it happen, Raisa.”

She took a heaving breath, then he felt her tighten around him, and he kissed her just before she let go, her moan echoing down his throat as he rode out his own release, shuddering.

He slowed, then stopped, and she sagged against him, his arm still supporting her. 

“I’ve never-” she was snuggling against his chest now, and her hand curled into his hair at the nape of his neck. 

He cleared his throat, his eyes flicking through the people in the room, checking for any reaction, but didn’t see any. 

“We are in the clear,” he whispered, and she giggled, snuggling into him further, and he could feel her eyes on him. 

“When does your regiment leave for Poland?” 

_Not soon enough._

“In a few days,” he said distantly, aware of the way she was looking at him, hearing the affection in her tone that hadn’t been there before. 

“Has any woman a claim on the soldier’s heart, beating in that chest?” she said, and it was too much. He shifted again, gently pulling himself from her, and began doing his trousers back up.

“None,” he said distinctly. “Which is the way I shall keep it.”

She laughed softly. “Do you not want for someone to think of you when you are gone? To keep you safe in their thoughts?”

“I keep myself safe.”

She continued to look at him, then, realizing he was completely disinterested, lifted herself off of him and stood, shaking her dress.

“Will I see you again?”

He shook his head, his attention half on the bets being placed on a table nearby. “No.”

She looked genuinely hurt, but he couldn’t bring himself to care. It was so deliciously easy not to.

“You are a heartless rogue, Officer Dolokhov.”

He grinned coldly at her. 

“To my dying day.”

**Author's Note:**

> Just for fun reference, I've added an asterix to any lines of dialogue that are straight from the book. Scenes from the show are self-explanatory! :D
> 
> This matches the _War and Peace_ timeline, not exactly, but generally. So keep in mind that it's 1805, and according to Tolstoy, Fedya is "around five-and-twenty years of age," here.   
> If I follow my internal timeline (omg, I'm sorry, lol) then by the time he meets Clara, it's 1813, eight years later, at the age of 33. _War and Peace_ moves quickly, so the eight years will pass quickly in this fic, as well! :)


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